days were slipping past
by omens
Summary: “I just don’t want to miss you anymore.” Future-fic.
1. Chapter 1

**Name:** Chris

**Title:** days were slipping past

**Fandom:** Wizards of Waverly Place

**Genre:** General

**Rating:** T

**Summary:** "I can show you exactly why this is a bad idea." Justin centric two shot. Future-fic.

…0…

The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn.  
~ David Russel

…0…

_Charolettsville, Virginia; 2010_

Here comes trouble.

On Justin's first day of college, his English professor had set the class to a task; find one commonly used phrase to describe yourself.

He doesn't even remember the phrase he chose for himself. Something from Shakespeare he thinks-there had been a near desperate wanting to prove himself, to impress, as he sat writing in his small dorm room. Leaving behind everything that had been Justin Russo for the last 18 years had been the goal.

On day 2, the task grew. Chose someone in your life, the first person to come to mind, and do the same for them. Then explain your reasons in essay form.

Alex.

Here comes trouble. It suited his sister to a tee, always.

His roommate-a tall, beefy guy named Ross from Ohio-had been particularly chatty and asked him several times why, when he could chose anyone in the world, he was writing about his sister. "You guys close?"

Close? They share a secret that they have to keep from the rest of the word, them and their family. Other than that…she's his little sister and they have little to nothing in common.

"Not really."

…0…

_Chapel Hill, North Carolina; 2018_

On the morning of Justin's 27th birthday, he gets a phone call from his brother.

Max, for all his whimsy and lack of focus during his youth, grew into a very serious young man. Justin takes a lot of the blame for that. Among other things.

"I took some time off work," Max tells him, his tone very deliberate. "And I was wondering if I could come down and visit for a few days."

"Sure." His response is out before his brain even has the time to fully process the question. The only thing that makes it through his muddled head is that his brother wants to come see him-his brother whom he hasn't seen in over 5 years. "I mean," he backtracks, hoping to erase some of the desperation in his tone, "I have to work, but there's a lot to do down here while I'm in class."

Max assures him that it'll be fine, and asks about the local music scene. A few minutes of idle chit-chat follows before Justin realizes he's about to be late for work. When they say goodbye, he tells Max to pass along his greetings to their parents. His brother agrees, and his voice has lost the casualness it had during their music talk. Justin's stomach drops.

Sighing, he hangs up and goes about the tasks of leaving for the day. The second nature of unplugging the coffee pot, checking the locks, turning off the television, are not usually something he's conscious of. He knows he does them, knows they're necessary, but doesn't really think about it beyond the moment.

Truth be told, there's been a lot of that in Justin's life lately, a lot of predictable routine that you could set your watch by. No muss, no fuss…no fun.

And if he's being entirely honest with himself, he knows exactly why.

…0…

_New York; 2012_

There's something different about Alex, Justin sees it the minute she picks him up at the airport.

At first, Justin almost walks right by his sister. It isn't until she calls out to him that he recognizes her.

The picture of Alex that Justin carries around in his head is a lot different than the girl standing in front of him. To him, she's a teenager draped head to toe in a dozen different colors, one as bright as the next, walk accompanied by the ever present clinking of jewelry, and long hair trailing out behind her. The young woman who walks toward him with that Alex air of purpose and confidence barely resembles his sister in her white tee shirt, brown motorcycle jacket, and her hair piled haphazardly on top of her head.

Maybe, Justin thinks, just maybe, she's finally growing up.

They don't hug which he never would have noticed before, but he does now. Instead, she cocks her head at his chin and asks, "What's with the scruff?"

"Its been a long semester," he answers and hitches his bag higher up on his shoulder as they make their way to the street, fighting the urge to run a hand over the stubble covering his jaw line.

…0…

_Chapel Hill; 2018_

Justin paces nervously back in front of the gate where Max's flight is set to land. Two women standing at the nearby coffee machine send glances his way. Maybe it's because he's making a bit of a spectacle of himself, maybe it's something else. Something he's not looking for.

Then the gate opens and the people start pouring out and then Max is there, looking more like their father than Justin would ever have imagined.

God, he thinks, Max is a grown up.

Intellectually, he already knew this. His little brother is 23 years old, has been running his own garage since he was barely 19. But seeing it is completely different. Seeing that the little boy that used to pull pranks on him with Alex is taller, and more broad in the shoulders, than he is hits the point home. The last time Justin saw Max was the summer before his senior year of high school, when Justin still had at least two inches and twenty pounds on him. He'd still been a kid.

Justin thinks maybe he should hug him. The sense of longing for a connection that's been running under his skin for the last 260 weeks (and counting) kicks in full tilt, so hard it makes him itch.

His feet make the decision for him and he's almost within arms reach of his brother when he notices that Max's left hand is connected, entwined, with the right hand of a tiny young woman with pale blonde ringlets tumbling over her shoulders. Justin freezes; unsure of how to react when suddenly Max reaches him and throws his arms around his older brother's neck.

A thousand memories flood Justin's head, from the first time he saw Max through the nursery window at Bellevue Hospital, to that last explosive argument when everything had gone up in flames. There are so many thoughts of magic and toys and playing cowboys and Indians in the sub shop that he has to pull away. Remembering happy times is too hard. Max has Alex's smile, Theresa's smile, and it just _hurts_.

If Max notices Justin's reaction, he doesn't say so. His hand goes out behind him and he pulls the girl up to tuck under his arm. She smiles shyly at Justin, gray eyes shiny and happy and they tug at his heart. "Justin," Max says and his smile so big a coat hanger could fit in his mouth, "this is Annaleigh." The name suits her; cute and sweet, girly. A pink flush colors her cheeks when Max says her name, and she looks up at Justin through her thick lashes like a little kid waiting for approval.

When he says hi and extends his hand to her, its like she just transforms into somebody else and she wraps him in a hug as if they've known each other for years.

Max beams with pride. Justin can see it about to burst forth from his brother in waves that could illuminate the entire city. "We came down here to tell you we're getting married this summer, and we want you there."

…0…

_New York, 2012_

One year at FIT and his sister has become obsessed with 80's music.

Half an hour into the summer and he hears Billie Jean blaring through the wall, and then the entire Thriller album. She then moves on to Slippery When Wet and he decides he's had enough.

Justin walks into Alex's room (the door was open) expecting to see her bopping around like she used to do whatever Top 40 song was playing. What he finds instead is Alex surrounded by dozens of colored pencils, sketching on her bed.

"Wow." He peers down at her sketchbook, impressed beyond words. He had no idea Alex was so talented. "That's really great, Alex."

Modesty has never suited her, but the faint flush across her cheeks when she smiles up at him does, and he grins at the pride shinning in her eyes and stretches out across the foot of her bed. "Thanks. There's this internship that starts in January, but I have to complete an entire collection by the first day of the new semester if I want to qualify."

Justin is even more impressed. An internship is a big deal. Who knew Alex was so ambitious.

The various papers littered about on her bed are all sketches as well. Bright swirly dresses, flowy tops, huge bags, all the type of things he could never see his sister wearing. Well, the sister he'd known a year ago. Maybe the girl he was watching draw while she hummed Dead or Alive under her breath would.

…0…

_Chapel Hill, 2018_

It takes less than an hour for Justin to understand exactly why Max is so enamored with Annaleigh.

On the rare nights that Justin goes out, he likes a small diner just down the beach from his house. He offers to take them out to somewhere a little nicer-there are great places in Chapel Hill he's heard-but Max insists that he wants a burger and Justin can attest how delicious they are at the diner.

And Annaleigh, bless her heart, never stops talking. She tells the story of meeting Max in elaborate detail, hands illustrating her tale, in a thick Savannah accent that Justin finds charming. They met at Max's garage, two years ago, when the Greyhound bus her drama class had driven up from Georgia overheated right in front of NYU and the driver walked to the nearest garage he could find and begged him for a tow.

"It was love at first site," she gushes, wrapping her hands around Max's, smiling fondly. And Max smiles in return, red all the way to his ears. "I moved to New York the next summer, because let's face it-long distance is a killer, and we've been inseparable ever since."

She's been working at the sub shop, doing a lot of the cooking, and his parents adore her, Max says. In fact, the first two months she lived in New York, she had stayed in Justin's old room, since Max had his own place in the East Village and his mother thought it was only polite.

Now they've moved to an old brownstone in Brooklyn that Max is fixing up and are planning for a late June wedding date. Theresa has thrown herself head first into planning, so much so that Annaleigh doesn't really have to do much but show up for her dress fittings. All in all, it sounds like everything is going swimmingly in New York.

"You can come, right?" she asks eagerly, and he would feel like a puppy kicker if he turned her down.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Annaleigh claps her hands together in glee, making a soft squeaking sound under her breath. Both Justin and Max laugh at her enthusiasm. It's hard not to feel good around someone so happy. His brother is really lucky Justin decides.

And then she lets the air of his tires when she says absentmindedly while stirring her iced tea, "I hope Alex is as excited as you are. I'm kind of nervous about meeting her."

Justin's eyes shoot to his brother only to find that Max has his gazed trained intently on his coffee cup like the answer to all the great questions of the universe lay inside.

"You guys are gonna go see Alex?" He can't help the gulp. The lump in his throat is so big it's necessary if he wants to get the words out and not some indistinguishable garble noise.

"Yeah." Annaleigh bobs her head like a jack in the box. "We're stopping off on our way back to New York. I've never been to DC and I can't wait to see her studio."

Alex's studio, which Justin's heard about in small detail but never actually seen. He thinks back to when she began helping Harper sew her creations and started designing her own, to the sheer joy on her face when she was excepted into the Fashion Institute. As far as Justin knows, she hasn't designed any clothes since her sophomore year, when she dropped out and moved to Washington with some girl from her dorm.

"Yeah," Justin whispers. "I bet it's something."

…0…

_New York, 2012_

The 4th of July is sticky and humid, too hot to do much of anything really.

It's always like this in New York in the summer. Justin got used to his friends taking off for less congested areas from June till September a long time ago, and this year it seems as if Alex is doing the same. Max had lucked into a job working on cars at the Sunshine Cab Company (who would still do anything for his family), and Alex seems content being the only Russo kid around the house.

He finds her around noon on the balcony, feet up on the railing, doing watercolors of the street fair going on in the streets below.

"What happened to the hippie dresses?"

Rolling her eyes, Alex dips her brush into the blue and adds a layer to the banners in her picture. "They're not hippieish," she retorts, "They're bohemian."

"And the difference is…"

"My clothes aren't a zillion years old and full of moth holes."

He could make a comment about the top she's wearing being a little bit on the hippie side with the laces and thin cotton straps, but doesn't. He does pluck at the fabric on her leg and say, "I was wondering where those were." Alex shrugs. She doesn't care that he might have some objection to her stealing his UVA boxers and wearing them right in front of him. Not that he's surprised of course.

"They look better on me," she says with all the assurance of someone who's never seen him wear them. "What are up to today?"

Jerry and Theresa had gone uptown, wanting to see what celebration the rest of Manhattan has cooked up, and invited him, but he'd woken up in a strange mood and really just wanted to hang out around the house.

"You're looking at it," he tells her and takes a sip of her lemonade sitting on the small table between them. "You?"

Grinning smugly, she parrots his own words back at him. "You're looking at it."

That's how they spend their holiday: on their loft balcony, talking and listening to Alex's hair band play list while she paints and tells him about her classes in fabric and he tries to describe what it's like to live in Virginia, how different the South is from New York, until the fireworks begin to break over their heads against the inky Manhattan sky.

"Wow," Alex breathes absolute wonder on her face. Justin finds himself watching Alex more than the festivities-the way the colors flow over her features and make her eyes twinkle in shade of blue and red.

…0…

_Chapel Hill, 2018_

There's a wrap around porch on the small beach front cottage Justin rented when he first moved to North Carolina for Grad school. It's his favorite place to sit at night and think as he listens to the waves crashing along the shoreline. There's a peace in the ocean that Justin has never known growing up a city boy.

Both Max and Annaleigh love it right away and the three of them stay out there in Justin's weather beaten patio furniture until 2 o'clock when Annaleigh dozes off and her head lolls over onto Max's shoulder.

"So…" Justin isn't entirely sure how to broach the subject, which is a little unnerving; not knowing how to talk to his own brother. "She's great, Max. I'm really happy for you."

Max glances down at the girl asleep beside him, face full of love. "Thanks." He brushes a stray curl away from her face. His brother can't help but watch the way he's so, so careful with her. Like she's the most delicate thing he's ever been in contact with. "I can see why you love it here," the younger man says. "It's beautiful. And I remember you telling me how much you loved the South when you were in Virginia."

"You ever think of leaving New York?"

Mindful of the blonde head resting against him, Max rolls his free shoulder in a shrug. "Not really. My business is there, and Dad's already talking about giving magic lessons to his grandkids."

"Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that." Making sure Annaleigh is truly asleep is Justin's first priority before he says anything else about the real Russo heritage. "I just didn't know how to bring it up…Max-"

"Justin, I know what you're gonna say-" Max begins, his voice no longer soft and easy.

But his older brother holds up a hand to cut him off. It has to be said. "Has anyone from the wizarding world told you what to expect? You know you can't keep your powers if you marry a mortal. And I'm only assuming that Annaleigh's a mortal-and that she knows you're not."

"She knows," Max answers. "And she is. But I don't care. They can take my powers."

Justin shoots out of his chair, his fists clenched at his side so hard his knuckles hurt. He wants to scream at his brother, to rail against his decision, but knows he can't.

It's all his fault that Max is even in this situation to begin with. "Max…what's going to happen when you lose your powers? Alex and I can't take them."

"I know."

"So what's going to happen?"

Max turns his head away, staring out over the dark waters glinting under a full Carolina moon. "Well, that's kind of why I'm here."

When Max was a kid, he was hopeless at hiding things from their parents. Unlike his sister, Max was bone with nary a deceitful bone in his body. Sure, he had inherited the same mischievous streak as Alex, but he wasn't sneaky the way she was. All it took was one look in his eyes to know that there was more to the story than what he was really saying.

"Max…"

A heavy sigh, like one would expect from a world weary old man emerges from Max, and Justin feels it like a punch to the gut, this burden he's placed on his little brother through his own selfishness.

"Crumbs came to see me last week," Max tells him, "the day before I called you. I guess they thought that since he was the one who gave us the first decision it would be easier coming from him."

"What would?"

"Justin, I never really expected to be the one to keep my powers. You were smarter, and more prepared. Alex wanted it so bad. I barely use them still. What does a mechanic really need magical powers for anyway? To reach a far away wrench?" He forces a smile. "It wasn't fair that you and Alex had your powers stripped away when you were both better wizards than I could ever be."

"We knew better, Max. We just…" He struggles for the words, any words, to try and explain what had happened back when Max was too full of fury to listen to his botched grasping at straws for a reason.

"Crumbs said one of you could have your powers back," Max blurts out before Justin can finish. It seems like he still doesn't want to know the details. "But the two of you have to decide which one. I came down here…" Max scrunches up his eyes, expression pained, before glancing down at Annaleigh. It seems to Justin that he needs to remind himself that he has a reason for doing this, that she gives him the strength to say what he needs to say. "I came down here to ask you to some to DC with me, to talk to Alex."

…0…

It takes until dawn for Max to talk his brother into going to Washington, but he does it.

Still, there is that niggling thought that he's doing it more because he misses Alex than he is for Max is in both of their heads, unvoiced.

The flight is set to leave the next evening at 5:15.

…0…

_New York, 2012_

Nobody likes to talk about why Justin's home for the summer and not working at the engineering lab as a Clerk like he had the previous two summers, but it's always there in the back of their minds. Jerry ties up all of Max's free time from the garage with the remainder of magic lessons, winding up everything that they have left before August when Max turns 17 and the battle is finally upon them.

Though he'd never actually say it out loud, Justin is pretty confident that the Russo child that's going to win and go on to be an adult wizard is him. He has 2 years of putting his skills to practice over his sister and her reckless disregard for the rules, 4 over Max's sometimes clumsy methods. He's more focused, skilled, and disciplined than both of them.

And he'd be lying if he said the remaining weeks until Max's birthday weren't going to be more than a little terrifying.

Mid July Alex begins to get cabin fever from working non stop on her collection and stalks into his room with fabric swatches over her arm and offers up a solution.

"Some friends of mine from school are going salsa dancing tonight. You want to go?"

He wouldn't have been more surprised if she asked him to teach her the schematics of the robotic arm he's planning for his senior project.

"Please Justin…I just need to get out of this apartment. If I stick myself with one more needle I may throw myself off the terrace."

He lets her drag him along, grumbling about how he's going to stick out like a sore thumb in the shirt she makes him wear. "You look _fine_; I do know what looks good on guys after all."

The last time Justin saw his sister in high heels was at her Quinceañera-and that lasted all of 2 seconds before she took them off and shoved them into his hands. But she seems to have no qualms about them now, stepping gracefully along the trash littering the streets of Soho in her 4 inch shoes. She gets more than one appreciative stare from guys along the way in the short red dress from the all important collection. She probably shouldn't wear it dancing, but it certainly looks salsa-esque and makes her tan skin seem to glow.

Before he left for college, the idea that these random strangers on the street were throwing looks of respect and admiration his way because he's with a girl who looks like Alex would have bothered him. They would have no way of knowing she's his sister, but she is and he should be bothered.

Then she takes his hand and pulls him across Avenue A to where a group of people dressed in overly hip clothes are waiting, and he ceases to care what anyone else thinks.

Alex introduces him simply as Justin. He doesn't add to it, letting the confidence that surely she's told her friends about him prevent him from being that Justin-the one she mocked on a continual basis.

Turns out they come here a lot when school gets to be too much. So often that the staff knows them by name and they have a regular table. Their waitress, a sultry older woman named Rosanna, asks Alex if her boy will be dropping by before winking at Justin and walking away.

"What boy?" he asks.

"Oh she didn't tell you?" Paige is from Connecticut, and drove into the city for the weekend. She has that bland New England WASP kind of beauty, all classic features and blonde hair, hidden under layers of black eyeliner and leather pants. "Alex has her own number one fan right under her own roof."

They mean Jack, the 17 year old waiter from the sub station who stutters and falls over his own feet whenever Alex walks into the restaurant. He shows up when he knows she and her friends are going to be there.

"Honestly, Alex," Paige says, "I don't see why you don't just tell him to buzz off. You're letting the poor kid waste his time and you obviously can do so much better." She too throws a wink in Justin's direction and he feels his stomach drop out from under him.

"I need to talk to you." Alex stiffens as he hisses the words in his ear, but lets him yank her by her wrist out of the booth towards the bathroom.

He doesn't even know where to begin. "Alex…you realize that your friends all think I'm your date, don't you?"

"Oh please, they do not."

"No? Then why don't you tell them I'm your brother and see what they say."

Her chin juts out-classic Alex defiance-simultaneously with her hands flying to her hips. This is the girl he remembers.

"Justin, just relax. They know you're my brother. Paige is just easy."

Does he believe her? Maybe? But these are her friends and he doesn't want to embarrass her by acting uptight and high-strung. He feels himself deflate and apologizes only to have her grab his hand when one of the guys with them yells from the dance floor for them to come join in and yanks him out onto the floor.

…0…

"Shh!"

Alex collapses in giggles against Justin, finger pressed to her lips. He rolls his eyes at her. He's not the one who's drunk and knocking into things in the shop in the too tall shoes.

"A-Alex!" Okay, so he's a little tipsy himself, but not as bad as she is. "If Mom and Dad find out I let you get dr-drunk, they'll kill me."

"Wah, wah. I'm hungry."

He follows her into the kitchen, sitting on a stool while she makes herself a sandwich. He props his chin in his hands and regards her.

"Did you have fun tonight?" She kicks her shoes off and hops onto the counter by the sink.

"Yeah. I'm not the best dancer…"

"Duh."

He goes on. "But it was fun. Your friends are pretty cool." After a beat, "And anything beats the best of Def Leppard."

"Hey!" She stumbles in her haste to jump down in indignation against her musical taste. Justin takes hold of her arm and rights her. "I'll have you know that I don't just like hair metal."

"Oh right," he nods, "I forgot about Madonna."

"Come on." Alex leaves her half eaten sandwich on the counter and drags him into the lair. "Sit." She sits him down on the small couch and points her wand (that she left laying on the table) at the stereo. A song begins immediately and he chuckles.

"Who are you, and what have you done with my sister?" Justin props his feet up on the table in front of him, watching her eyes fall shut as she sways to the Cure in the room where they've had so many arguments.

"I've grown up."

"I see that."

He doesn't mean that the way it comes out. But he's so relaxed at the moment that it somehow comes out a little…suggestive. Alex stops, and her eyes open slowly. She looks at him, face devoid of expression. It makes him _seriously_ uncomfortable.

The music stops and starts up again with a new song. Whatever moment they'd been having is over, so he stands up and goes to leave.

"Wait."

He chooses to focus on the door in front of him, and not the fact that Alex's hand on his wrist all of a sudden feels different.

"Justin, tonight, when you said that my friends thought you were my date…that upset you, didn't it?"

"It should upset you, too." He can't even look at her.

Going out with Alex and her friends is the most fun Justin has had in a long time. He recalls the feeling of her tiny hand in his when she showed him how to salsa earlier, a skill she'd picked up from their mother while he was away. Letting Alex teach him something for a change, something she obviously loved and was good at, was liberating in a way he hadn't known was possible.

There was light in her eyes there, amidst the pounding music and swirling colors of the other people floating around them. There was happiness.

There was magic.

Now, with a decades old love song playing in the background, and Alex's warm palm against his pounding pulse, the hours out fall under the wash of innuendo. And God help him, he thinks he's a fool for not seeing it sooner.

"I know." Alex's voice is tiny even though she's moving closer to him, bringing her body into line directly behind his. "But…it didn't."

Justin turns. There are certain things in life you have to face head on. "Are you sure you want to go here?"

Justin began wearing the St. Christopher medal his grandfather gave him for First Communion when he left home. It helped to know that he had someone up there looking out for him, helping to find whatever it was that was lacking in his life and sending it his direction.

When Alex's fingers find their way to the medal, wrapping around it, the pieces of the puzzle finally align and the truth snaps into focus before his eyes.

All her life, Alex has been pulling him along in her wake, making his actions a counterpoint to her own. Action and reaction. He'd seen it, the way anybody living under the guise of denial sees the facts and choose to believe their own rationalizations. 3 years away from that pattern and he falls back into as easily as if he'd never left it.

Justin Russo thought he had found himself in college, hundreds of miles away from his family, in a new city, studying a subject he's loved his whole life.

And all it takes to prove him wrong is the feeling of "Oh, yeah. So this is it." that jumps to life in his subconscious when Alex pulls the chain just enough to lower his head down to hers.

_I'll stop the world and melt with you._

…0…

Title comes from a lyrics from 'Lost' by Michael Bublé.


	2. Chapter 2

_New York; 2012_

The sun starts spilling into the lair room the next morning at 7. Justin groans and rolls over to bury his head against the back of the couch.

"Ugh, turn out the lights," Alex whines from the other end of the sofa.

Justin nudges her with his foot. "It's morning, genius," he says, sitting up.

Alex lifts her head to look at him and says over a yawn; "It's too early to be morning."

Justin laughs, rolls his eyes, and tosses his end of the blanket over her head. He wavers just a little once upright, feeling the effect of his drinks from the night before. Alex, of course, is already back asleep.

Justin feels queasy. He figures it's about half hangover and half after shocks from the fact that his sister kissed him the night before.

And yes, he kissed her back.

He doesn't know yet if she even remembers. She had seemed more than a little lucid by the time it happened, but she had a lot more to drink than him. Who knows what she's going to remember when she wakes up.

His mother is already in the kitchen when he walks through the door. He forgets that they opened early and served breakfast sandwiches now.

"Hey, what are you doing down here so early?"

"Um…" God. Can she see him sweating? "Alex and I were listening to music last night. We fell asleep in the lair."

Theresa offers him a piece of bacon from the plate she's making, and he takes it gladly. "I love that you two are getting along so much better. Believe me; I worried that you two would never stop arguing."

Guilt washes over him, enough to make his stomach twist into what feels like 73 different knots of discomfort. Then his palms begin to sweat as well. Its okay, he thinks to himself. We were drunk, we didn't mean it. And it wasn't even anything that bad anyhow.

"Yeah." What else can he say? He goes out into the sub station, pulling the coffee pot and a mug from under the counter and pours a cup he hopes will make the cottony feeling in his brain dissipate.

The mug is halfway to his lips when Alex breezes past him and takes it out of his hand. She settles onto one of the stools on the other side of the counter and begins to pour a steady stream of sugar into the cup.

"Would you like some coffee with your sugar?" Justin quips, pouring himself another cup.

She takes a very big, rather noisy, gulp. "No thanks. But a danish would be nice."

"I'm amazed you have any teeth left." He sits it on a napkin in front of her and watches her devour it like she hasn't eaten in a year.

Theresa laughs as she walks by with a tray of breakfast sandwiches and glasses of orange juice.

A silence falls over them-a _very awkward_ silence. Alex eats her danish, Justin sips his coffee.

The stalemate begins.

…0…

_Washington DC; 2018_

Getting through security at the Washington airport is a nightmare. Much worse than it is in New York. Not that Justin is in the best of moods to begin with. It took three solid hours to convince Annaleigh to go on back to New York and let Justin go with Max to DC. They told her it was private, sibling stuff, but it had still been a battle. He refuses to even entertain imagining what his parents will think of his going to visit Alex.

The cab ride to Alex's studio isn't much better. It's close to 8 pm when they make their way across the bridge over the Potomac towards 2nd Street where Alex has lived for the past year and a half according to Max.

There was a time when Justin dreamed of going to Washington; seeing all the historical sites and political landmarks, soaking up the culture and heritage that the nation's capitol had to offer. Now…

All Justin could think of were the knots in his stomach.

He hadn't seen his sister in close to 6 years. Not since the day they had been found out, stripped of their powers due to misuse of magic, and he had left New York for the last time.

That day, it still haunted Justin like the vestiges of a bad dream. A memory too horrific to ever really be forgotten. It replayed in his subconscious in vivid detail, unbidden, at times whenever he was too close to letting his guard down.

What he wouldn't give for the occasional bout of amnesia.

Max, if possible, seems even more on edge than he does. He sits beside Justin in the back of the silent cab in a constant flutter of nervous energy. His leg bounces, fingers twitching on the window, and he chews away at his bottom lip in distraction.

Growing up in the Russo family, the three of them had stuck to a very distinct dynamic. Max was more like Alex. They engaged in pranks together, teased their older brother. They understood each other. Necessary when forced to live in the shadow of sibling with a near perfect GPA and even better attendance record. Yet Max looked up to his brother. That's what little brothers do. Justin was smarter, more talented, a better wizard. It was just easier to ignore how high the bar was set than to try and meet it only to fall on his face.

And then there was Alex. Max got away with a lot of the stuff he did because there was usually some bigger crisis involving his sister going on to divert his parents' attention. His sister who was always wilder, cooler, more daring than he ever dreamed of being.

It really came as no surprise to anyone that Justin and Alex clashed the way they did, being such opposites. And while Max tended to lean a little more on the Alex side of the disagreements, he still tried to help as best he could if for no other reason than to try and garner some of the glory for himself.

Max can't imagine what Justin's feeling at the moment. When he still lived at home, Justin had never been shy about expressing his emotions. If anything, he over shared. That was just one in a continual barrage of habits that Alex chose to pick at. But now he sat stoically against the cab door, face pressed to the glass, lost in thoughts his brother would never want to be privy to.

Finally the cab driver turns on the radio. All the silence in his back seat must have been too much for him to handle any longer.

"…_it's Friday, I'm in love_."

The words vault Justin back in time. It feels like he's 21 years old again, feeling the affects of too many Long Island Iced Teas, while Alex twirls in her blood red dress in the lair and he's overcome with the knowledge that he's about to be sick.

"Pull over," he tells the driver. He manages to escape just seconds before the scant breakfast he ate that morning makes a reappearance.

"You okay?" Max asks when he gets back in.

He's not. He's clammy and queasy, and none of it is due to the ride, which he tells the driver repeatedly after he apologizes for the bumpiness of the trip.

Since he's sitting next to one of the only people who could ever know the real reason he feels like he could empty the contents of his stomach all over again, he doesn't even have to pretend. "I don't know, Max. I honestly don't."

…0…

_New York, 2012_

42 hours pass before Justin has the guts to be alone in a room with his sister again.

He's been lucky so far. His parents are so thrilled to have all their children back under the same roof at the same time that it isn't hard to wrangle one of them into always being around. He helps his mom in the restaurant (Jack doesn't look too happy as he leaves, casting forlorn glances back at Alex) during her shifts, sets the table while she cooks dinner, folds when she does the laundry. He sits in on Max's lessons with his dad, then they watch whatever game is on after it's over. Even Max, when he's home, is only too happy to hang out with his older brother and pump him with questions about college girls and frat parties (Sadly, there aren't too many of those stories).

Alex hovers around, trying to catch a second with him. It unnerves him. The Alex he grew up with was only too happy to let days pass without speaking to him. She preferred it in fact.

That Alex would never have kissed him though.

Right?

He walks into her room about an hour after their parents have gone to bed. She's standing in front of her dummy-mannequin, whatever its called-pinning the hem on a long blue dress with multicolor beads along the neckline. Her iPod is in its dock and she's humming along to Silver Springs, oblivious to his presence.

Justin announces his presence with a generic "That looks great, Alex."

"He speaks." She won't look at him. There's anger in her voice, a defiant tilt to her chin. And he'd bet money on a reproachful glare in her eyes when she does look at him. "I'm busy in case you hadn't noticed."

"I just…" He lets his voice trail off, hoping she'd take the hint. But she's Alex, and she's going to make him work for this. "I wanted to, you know, talk. About what happened. The other night. In the _lair_."

"Oh my God," she exclaims and tosses her pincushion to the floor. "Do you talk to everyone in those little sentences like they're a toddler, or am I just a special case?"

"Look, Alex, I know you're angry-" He moves toward her. If she doesn't lower her voice their parents are going to come and see what's going on.

Alex steps backwards when Justin closes in on her. There's fury in her eyes, making them bright. Disappointment is there too. Not as much, but it's still there. Alex is hurt and it's his doing. Justin feels sick.

"No, you don't know," she says. "You have no idea what I'm going through."

The statement is enough to make him snap, and he feels the anger boil over without warning, without deliberation. "_I_ have no idea what you're going through? You don't think I'm going through this?"

"Are you?" she demands. But before he gets the chance to answer she moves around him and closes her bedroom door. This isn't something they want anyone to overhear. "I'm not the one avoiding you, Justin." Her accusation stings, he won't deny it. Truth is like that.

"I'm sorry." It's all he has.

Alex turns away from him. It hurts, down deep in his soul, it hurts like hell. More than anything else in the world, he wants to be who he has always been; the big brother who makes it better. But he can't fix this. And that fact tears away at him as much as anything else.

"Do you blame me?"

It reaches up and grabs hold of him, the guilt he feels. It's not like Alex to take responsibility onto herself. Especially not for something like this; something that has the potential to really do some damage. He doesn't know how to respond to this. Justin only knows that he's suddenly so _aware_ of Alex, of Alex being a girl instead of just being Alex. A girl willing to bear the brunt of a mistake they both made.

He feels something open up inside himself, something big and scary that feels like the moment before jumping off the high dive at the local pool. For the first time in his life, Justin feels reckless and spontaneous. Alive. This is the feeling that had brought him here, to her room, ready to leap without looking for once.

He just didn't see it until now.

Crossing the room in quick strides, Justin turns Alex around to face him. "No," he tells her, wiling everything in his heart to come through right now-in his eyes, his voice-anywhere she can see it. "I don't."

"But I kissed you," she protests. She lets Justin pull her hand, till her arms are no longer crossed over her chest, and wrap his own around it. "I pulled you back when you tried to leave the lair. I…" Alex takes a deep breath. "I lied to you. My friends did think you were my date, and I let them."

"Why?"

Her eyes go around the room, flitting here and there over his head like she doesn't have the nerve to look him in the eye when she gives her reason.

Justin thinks of his sister as fearless. Her being hesitant…it scares him a little. "Alex?" he prods, rubbing his thumb up and down the side of her hand.

"I think it's the same reason I kissed you. I just…I don't know what to call it yet." She finally meets his gaze. She's struggling. He can see it, he respects it. His fingers twine themselves through hers. "It was like a sneeze."

That's unexpected. "A sneeze?"

"You know, that feeling you get," she begins "when everything sort of builds up, waiting to explode, and then..."

"Boom?"

She nods. "Yeah. But a good boom." Then, realizing what she's said, a blush sweeps over her cheeks and she puts her hands over her face. "Ugh, I'm being such a girl here, aren't I?"

"Hey…" He pulls her hands away from her face and forces her to look at him. He's ready to take a chance for once. "I kissed you back," he whispers before letting his lips come to rest on hers.

…0…

_Washington, 2012_

They find the studio easily enough. There's some minor traffic on the street, so the cab driver lets them out at the corner and they walk, bags in hand, until the purple awning of Russo Gallery looms into view.

It's closed, which isn't really a surprise. The hours listed on the front door say closing time is 6 through the week. But the lights are still on and they can see a tall woman with long red hair standing by what looks like a reception area.

Max shifts his overnight bag on his shoulder and knocks on the door. Justin fights the urge to pass out.

The woman looks up, sees them, and walks briskly to the door. "We're closed." Her voice is muffled through the glass, but still audible. She point towards the hours listed, and begins to walk away.

"Wait," Max calls to her. "We're looking for Alex."

The door opens, but her hand remains firm on the knob. She's cautious, Justin thinks. He respects that. "Alex?" Doubt. Which is surprising in a way to them, but also expected at the same time.

Max takes a step closer, trying to wedge inside maybe. "We're her brothers."

The lady's eyes roam over Max's face, then Justin's. either she's looking for signs that she's lying or she's looking for a resemblance.

"Callie? What's going on?"

Alex's voice. Justin would know it anywhere. It thumps through his body, a beat, a vibration he knows instinctually. She's there and the knowledge makes his pulse speed up, his mouth dry.

"There are two guys out here," the redhead-Callie, Alex called her-yelled back. "They say they're your brothers."

It's quiet for too long. Could she be about to say that she doesn't have any brothers? That she does, but doesn't want to see them? Maybe she only wants to see Max? His erratically beating heart plummets through his feet.

The she responds. "Let them in."

She steps back, looking none too happy about it, so they can walk past her into the gallery bearing their family name. Both look around, taking in the place that their sister, who was never fond of work or responsibility or anything of the like, has built up, made a success. The towering walls are white, covered with huge paintings, as expected, in varying styles and tastes. There are small podiums scattered about displaying sculptures, pottery, even jewelry upon closer inspection. All of it has that air, that screams 'Alex.'

Justin hears footfalls on the hardwood floor and turns to see Callie walking out the door, locking it behind her. Her lack of parting words make the hair on the back of his neck stand up at what the reason behind her silence could mean, what Alex cold have told her.

They don't actually see their sister until the lock on the heavy glass door clicks into place and the click-clack of heels draw their attention to a staircase over the reception desk, and she finally comes into view.

If Justin was surprised by the sight of his brother as an adult, he's even more so by seeing his sister all grown up.

Technically, Alex was an adult when he'd seen her last. She had been 19, and that was, in fact, an adult. At least legally. But the signs of her childhood had still lingered on her in the roundness of her cheeks and the vibrancy in her eyes.

Before him now is a grown woman, all angles and sharp bones, still Alex, but not an Alex he's ever known.

"What are you doing here?"

There's no specification on her words. But she doesn't have to direct them at Justin to know that they're meant for him. The look on her face is enough.

Good thing he and Max came prepared for a fight.

…0…


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Clearly, no longer a two shot. I blame those Puerto Rico pics. **

…0…

_New York; 2012_

Honestly? He thinks they're actually sort of…dating.

Wednesday, he asked her to go over to the comic book store on St. Mark's Place with him. She did, for once, and kept her comments about nerds and tights to under the breath mumbling.

Thursday, she coerced him into helping her look for a certain type of silk all over Chinatown. Not as out of the ordinary, but they had lunch afterward and walked the streets until dusk, holding hands for the whole world to see and talked about weekend plans.

Weekend plans. Together.

He thinks she may be his girlfriend.

It's difficult to pinpoint which is more puzzling; him and Alex dating, or him and Alex just plain getting along.

Friday night there's a horror movie marathon at a revival house in Queens. It's not really something he'd be into, but she tugs on his arm and gives him that puppy dog face she does so well and he caves. Naturally.

Ross, his roommate from UVA, calls him about once a week, just to say hi. Against his better judgment, Justin tells him he has a date that night. He knows it's not smart and that it could lead to questions he has no answer for, but he can't help it. He wants to brag a little.

"Horror movie. Nice." Ross sounds like he's smiling that cocky smile he always has when talking about girls. "That's a great way to get up close and personal, if you know what I mean."

He does, and it makes him feel a little on the queasy side.

There's a big difference between holding hands in public, kissing a few times after everyone else in the house is asleep, and…the rest. And he's not sure how he feels about that just yet.

He doesn't tell Ross that of the two of them, he's the one more likely to be creeped out by a bad slasher movie than Alex is. He just lets his friend think that he's going to take his advice. It's always worked in the past.

They stand on the subway ride there, the train packed with the young hipster crowd heading from the city for underground concerts and commuters making their way home after a long day at work. Justin holds onto the poll to keep from falling (he's clumsy like that) while Alex thumbs through a magazine she picked up at the terminal. He sees a few guys by the car's end casting glances in her direction. Defensiveness wells up in his chest. As her brother, Justin has never been entirely comfortable with guys checking her out. As her whatever he is now, he begins to think of a way to let them know that she's taken without tipping her off. She'd never let him hear the end of it.

"Hey, there's going to be an art festival in Duchess County next week," she says offhandedly.

"Yeah?" He leans over to look at her magazine, sliding an arm around her shoulders.

Alex looks up at him. No doubt he caught her off guard with such a public display, as small as it is. She casts a look over his shoulder. Justin almost sees the light bulb go off over her head when she sees the same guys looking their way. "Oh, are you trying to be all macho here?"

Heat spreads across his face. "No."

She laughs and stuffs the magazine down in her bag. "Yes you are," she teases. "You're giving those guys the 'off limits' body language and everything."

"Alex…" He has to look away. She's right, she knows she's right, but he doesn't need to see the mocking in her face just yet.

The feel of her arms sliding around his waist surprises Justin and his head jerks up. He's not used to her being affectionate, for lack of a better word. Plus, hello, they're in public. Then she smiles a smile he's never seen before and he realizes she's blushing a little bit herself. "I think it's…cute."

"Yeah?"

"Mmmhmm."

Her hand rubs a circle up and across his shoulder blades, sending a warm tingle down his spine. The other hand manages to make its way up his chest to his collar and she pulls his face down to hers, both hands tangling in his hair.

Justin feels dizzy when she pulls away. Alex looks very smug and self satisfied. The guys at the other end of the car are forgotten. The only thing that matters to him right now is the press of Alex's small frame against his and the way her head fits just so into the curve between his neck and shoulder.

…0…

_Washington; 2018_

Alex looks pissed. There's really no other way to describe it. She stands before her brothers, scowl on her face, radiating fury from head to toe.

Justin is beyond embarrassed because he can't help the blatant way he stares at her, not able to connect the Alex in his head with the Alex standing in front of him.

This happened to him once before and he's not anxious to relive _that_.

A scowl darkens her face when she notices the way his eyes just won't leave her, and she crosses her arms over her chest in irritation. "I asked you a question."

Did she? Oh yes. Why are they (he) here?

Because Max asked me.

Because Max needed me.

Because I miss you.

Because I'm sorry.

"I'm getting married," is what actually gets said. By Max.

Alex's eyes soften looking at her little brother. Justin knows that look. Hell, he invented that look; when you want to strangle your sibling but you can't when the memories of their pudgy baby fingers holding onto yours refuse to abate. And when she crosses the room and wraps Max in a tight hug a lump lodges in Justin's throat that's half guilt, and half envy.

"I missed you," she whispers and when she pulls away she wipes at her eyes.

Her eyes meet his. "Justin."

"Alex."

"So," she turns a bright smile to Max, linking an arm through his to steer him towards a gaggle of chairs against the far wall. "Tell me about the girl."

Max is blunt, like usual, like Alex. "She's mortal."

Alex stops dead in her tracks. Her fingers wind around the pendant hanging about her neck, puling like she needs some strength, some salvation. She looks back over at her older brother for some unknown something he wishes he could give her. He would in a heartbeat, if he could.

"Max…"

"I won't change my mind, Alex," Max says. "I love her. This is what I want."

"Justin…" Now she's fully turned towards him, begging him to _do something_. Not that he can blame her. It was always his job.

Justin sets his bag down on the shiny oak floor of Alex's gallery, and walks silently to his younger siblings, sneakers making a soft 'whoosh' sound. He imagines them, like this, when they were younger and how it was forever his role to keep them safe, keep them under control when no one else could.

Man, did he drop the ball or what.

But there are no eye rolls on Alex's end here. No look of confusion in Max's eyes when he looks back and forth between the two people he looks to for his cues. There is only them, the Russo children, and the unspoken disaster that nearly tore their family apart rearing its ugly head again.

(But it didn't feel like a disaster until it became one.)

"It's his choice, Alex," he says and squeezes his brother's shoulder. Solidarity. Relief and gratitude wash over Max's face and Justin will never forget the way his brother looks right now.

"But Justin-"

"We did this," he tells her, and she clamps her mouth shut, eyes wounded. She knows he's right, as does Max if the way he's squirming and averting his eyes means anything. "You and me, Alex. The two of us put Max in this situation and neither of us have any right to tell him he can't have what he wants."

The soft recessed lighting in the gallery, meant to set everything in a flattering glow, catch her features and make the unshed tears in her eyes sparkle. One tiny hand works its way into Max's much larger palm, gracing him with a watery smile while the other remains in a white knuckled fist around the long silver chain she wears and Justin can almost feel the press of St. Christopher as if it were his own skin the image was imprinting upon.

…0…

_New York; 2012_

Dinnertime is the most hectic in the Russo household. Justin has forgotten the way noise could make him feel so at ease. Alex's voice, rising over his or Max's, trying to make her point, his dad repeating himself over and over because no one can get a word in edgewise when his kids are all in the same room, his mother and her continual please for quiet and 'get your elbows off the table.'

This is only the third time this summer that all of them have sat down to a meal at the same time. They're having stir fry, tying to get the pieces of 5 different Tuesdays into 1 conversation before all the food is gone. But their mother came prepared and the cell phones have all been confiscated until after dinner, the house phone turned off, and the television remote hidden.

And ever since this…thing with him and Alex started, they've been eating their meals together, away from the rest of the family. Being around the rest of the family is a nice change. Does he want things to go back to normal? He's not sure, he's really not. There's a novelty to being able to actually talk to his sister, for once in his life to be able look at her and know she's not thinking of ways to torment him in her head. She enjoys his company, whatever that entails now. (He's not going to let his mind stray _there_ with their parents on either side of them.)

Tonight feels like high school to him. Max is going on and on about some girl that he met at the garage earlier, about a superhero movie that comes out this weekend, his voice light and unburdened the way Justin wishes he could be. He thinks of how excited Max's voice was when he called to tell him he'd gotten his drivers' license, and thinks that his brother is still such a kid, all inexperience and innocence despite it all.

Justin hate onions and Alex picks them off of his plate with no thought. This is what they do. She takes them as easily as air, leaving him with whatever she has no desire for herself. When there's nothing left on her own plate but green peppers, she hands it to him so he can scrape them into his second helping.

No one thinks anything of it, but when he makes a comment about onion breath she sticks her tongue out at him, no retort, and he notices his father's glance in their direction, silently observing.

She gets him back though, putting her hand on his knee under the table, making him jump and choke on his lemonade. "Went down the wrong way," he covers, coughing and sputtering over his words. Alex simply grins to herself.

Later that night after everyone is asleep he's reading in his room while she sits against his headboard watching a Woodstock DVD on his laptop. Justin's left the door open, for appearances sake, and hopes their luck continues and no one gets up any time soon.

Alex closes the computer abruptly, crawls next to him and bumps his shoulder with hers. "Shouldn't this feel weird?"

"Maybe," he says, playing with a strand of her hair that's fallen across his page.

"Maybe?" she teases, and scoots closer. "Aren't you supposed to be smart?"

Justin's book is taken out of his hand and dropped to the carpet below. He finally examines her expression and cocks his head to the side. "Well, I guess it depends on the movie."

Alex makes a face at him. "Cute."

"Oh, I know," he rolls his eyes heavenward like it's such an ordeal being him before he grins at her. "Sound familiar?"

"You finished?"

Rolling over onto his back, he crosses his hands under his head and smirks up at her. "What's in it for me?"

Alex grins that devious grin of hers, closed lipped, and he knows instinctively what he's in for, when she takes the chain of his necklace between her fingers. It drives him crazy when she does that.

"St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers."

He raises his head up to look at her, not used to Alex actually knowing who someone not associated with MTV is.

"You're not the only one who had to suffer through Sunday school you know."

Justin holds his hands up in defense. "I didn't say a word."

She harrumphs and pushes her bottom lip out in a pout. He realizes Alex wants to play.

"There's this song my roommate listens to a lot." Alex's hair is so soft. He just can't seem to keep his fingers out of it, even when he has to reach up for it. "Frank Sinatra."

"The old guy?"

Justin laughs. "Dead actually, but yeah."

"That's creepy."

"Hello, Jimi Hendrix. Died in 1970." He taps his laptop with his foot.

Her eyes roll upward. "Continue," she says grudgingly.

His hand falls from her hair to skim down her arm. Again, so soft. "I've got you under my skin."

She's so cute when her brow furrows like that he thinks. "Huh?"

"That's the song. I've got you under my skin, I've got you deep in the heart of me."

Alex leans closer. "I think I like this song. Is there more?"

"So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me."

Then her lips fall onto his, cutting off his words. Good thing since the rest of the song isn't nearly as romantic.

And if either of them stopped to really think about the lyrics, the mood would be ruined. Because in a way, she actually is a part of him. They share the same blood, the same DNA, the same memories. Now they share this.

Footsteps creaking in the hallway make them spring apart as if burned. Justin has his book back in his hands and Alex has resumed her spot with the computer before their dad pops his head into the room. "Justin, you still awake?"

He fights against the desire to confess everything right then and there under his father's gaze. "Yeah."

He spies Alex at the head of the bed. "What are you doing in here?"

"My battery died." God, Justin wishes he could think of lies on the fly like she can.

That seems to satisfy him so he turns his attention back to his son. "There's a game on. You wanna watch?"

"It's after 11," Alex interjects.

"Live from Vancouver."

There's such…hope in his father's eyes, such excitement. It's been so long since they've watched a game together, and he misses it. He misses his Dad. "Sure."

He's gone quickly, and they hear the set blaring to life downstairs. Justin casts an apologetic look back at Alex. "You can borrow that," he directs his hand at the laptop. "If, you know, you want to finish your movie."

Instead, Alex purses her lips and ejects the disk. "No thanks. I think I'll just go to bed." She storms past him without another word, shrugging off the hand he tries to place on her shoulder. When he hears the click of the lock on her bedroom door, Justin leans his head against the wall, cursing under his breath before he makes his way downstairs.

…0…

_Washington; 2018_

They walk to dinner. Alex likes to frequent a small bistro with a view of Capitol Hill, so that's where they go. Max stays in the middle the entire way, and Alex keeps her arms around herself. No one speaks much.

The place is pretty nice. He wonders if they're going to get any comments about their wardrobe. All three of them are dressed pretty casually; all in jeans, Alex wearing a black sweater and an army jacket, Max in an unzipped hoodie. Justin's wearing a blazer over his tee shirt, but he also has on a pair of Converse. But the hostess, in a silk dress, doesn't mention it. She hugs Alex though and shows them to a table before the people that were already waiting when they walked in the door.

The three of them make small talk. Alex recommends dishes, Max asks about the drink selection. Understandable. Justin could use some liquid courage himself.

It's weird.

In the back of his head Justin has wondered what it would be like to see his sister again for years. He just never imagined the circumstances would be quite like this.

While they're all presumably poring over their menus he studies Alex. If anything, she's more beautiful than ever now that she's all grown up. He watches her study her menu, even though she herself said she comes here a lot, like it's a matter of utmost importance, twirling a lock of curly dark hair around her finger. She releases the strand and Justin watches it spring back into place against the slope of her cheekbone. A cheekbone that was a lot more prominent than the last time Justin had seen her. Everything about Alex, from the lines of her face, to the way she spoke, to her shoes had been hones to a sharper point that put her on display more than all the loud clothes of her youth ever could.

The waiter brings them a bottle of wine on the house. Max raises his eyebrows and gives a low whistle, making the corners of Alex's mouth quirk up in amusement while she sips.

Justin? Justin watches the waiter study Alex, drawing his eyes across her face and over the lines of her body in that unrestricted type of appreciation that Justin can't. Alex herself could not possibly be more oblivious to the fact. Not surprising. Alex has always turned heads. She's just used to it.

Then her gaze flick up, and meets his. He nods his head towards the waiter, still standing beside her chair while Max peppers him with questions, and offers up a small smile for an olive branch.

She doesn't return it, doesn't even try. Instead, her eyes, once so bright and full of life, dim even more and she looks hollow; a husk of her former self.

Or…maybe she feels that same palpable loneliness that he's felt for the last 5 and a half years.

Appetizers come and go, followed by entrees. They make it all the way to dessert before Max brings up the reason that they're all there to begin with.

"So…are we gonna talk about this or not?"

"Here, Max? Really?" Alex demands.

He shrugs, taking a bite of his chocolate sundae and talking around it. "At least I know you guys can't yell at me in public. Well, you can, but you won't."

A part of Justin wants to smack his brother upside the head. Another part wants to laugh. He's right after all.

"Max," Alex drops her voice. "Are you really sure about this?"

"I love her." And he says it with such certainty, such faith, that Justin can't help but be moved. "She's the one, Alex. I want it, all of it, with her. Forever."

What it must be like, Justin thinks, to be so sure of your choice. It's a luxury he hasn't had himself since…

"Justin?"

"Huh?" he looks up to see his sister looking at him expectantly. She pinches the bridge of her nose-most likely to stave off a headache-and exhales, blowing her bangs out of her eyes.

"I asked you what you think of all this?"

"I'm here, aren't I?"

Alex grimaces. "I meant; are you okay with our family losing magic?"

She must see the way they both look away from her then, the way they began squirming around like kids in trouble with their teacher. "What?"

Neither of them says anything. Max shovels another forkful of cake into his mouth, Justin takes a very long sip of his wine.

"Guys…what are you not telling me?" training her eyes on her little brother, she leans back in her chair and takes on a defensive posture. "Max?"

"Well…you see, Alex, the thing is…" He turns toward his brother, desperation coloring his features and his posture so much so that anybody in the restaurant would know that he didn't want to have to say what he was about to. "Justin," he finally pleads, "little help here."

"We can get our powers back," he blurts out, then realizes what he's said and backtracks. "At least one of us can."

"How is that even possible?" Alex looks stunned, probably more so than he was when Max first told him that the thing he thought could never happen was actually possible. "We had our powers stripped…" She leans forward, eyes downcast. "For a good reason."

She looks ashamed. A cold chill creeps over Justin's body despite the stuffy air in the room.

"I know," he tells her. "But Crumbs talked to Max, and one of us can have our powers back." He takes a deep breath. "If we can decide who its going to be."

"One of us?" Her head whips around towards Max so fast her hair flies about her face. She pushes it away mindlessly. "We have to choose which one of us gets to have our powers back?"

Feeling sheepish, Justin shrugs. For some reason, this-telling her this way-feels like a copout. After everything that's happened, she deserves better than this.

"Yeah."

…0…


	4. Chapter 4

_New York; 2012_

When his mother asks Justin what he and Alex are fighting about, he can't answer her.

One big reason is that he's not even sure himself. All he knows is that the morning after he watched the Mets game with his dad, Alex started giving him the silent treatment. The change in demeanor is enough to give him whiplash it's such a one-eighty.

Once he's truly sick and tired of her cold shoulder (which is honestly worse than all the insults in the world) he decides to just get out.

A seedy bar in Soho isn't a place he'd normally go, but his actions lately have been seedier in the last few days than all the rest of his life put together so in a weird way it fits.

There's a man on the stool beside him that is just radiating gloom, but the place is packed so he doesn't have a choice.

He orders a beer, in a bottle. There's no way he's going to trust drinking from a glass in this place. The bartender eyes him like he can read Justin's type all over him; straight-laced, academic, the whole nine yards. He's never been much of a drinker, especially beer, but he can't stand the thought of going back to the loft and putting up with Alex's stony silence and accusing glances.

"You look like you have something on your mind, kid," the guy beside him says, not even bothering to look up from the tumbler in front of him.

While his instincts are telling Justin not to talk to this guy, cause yeah, he looks shady, but he doesn't exactly have a lot of options about who he can talk this thing over with. "You could say that."

"Girl trouble?"

Justin laughs, and even he can hear the bitterness that laces it. That is the understatement of the century.

The guy finally looks at him. "I'll take that as a yes." Draining the remnants of his glass, he slaps the top of the bar. As smart as Justin likes to think he is, that is one custom he's not sure of. But then the bartender refills the glass with a dark, smoky looking liquid and he mentally slaps himself. "She take off on you?"

"Not yet," Justin tells the guy. He finally looks at the guy and takes in the dark circles under his eyes and the thick stubble, the dirty and tattered looking clothes. Justin resists the urge to wrinkle his nose. "But I have a feeling its coming."

The guy snorts, downing his new drink in one gulp. "Yeah. Women are like that. Do one thing they don't like and bam!" He slams his glass down hard on the bar. "They're all the same." Looking Justin up and down slowly, he sniffs in disdain. "What was your crime?"

"I'm not really sure," he says, sipping his beer, slowly getting used to the taste. "Just that…I don't know if there's a chance for us to work it out."

That's when the man stands abruptly, pulling out his wallet to toss a few bills down onto the wooden surface of the bar. He then tosses a picture down beside it. Checking first, Justin picks it up and sees that it's the same guy. A little younger but definitely him, wrapped around a pretty blonde with big dark eyes. Both of them were smiling.

"I was never really sure what I did either," he tells Justin. "But I gave up. And I've regretted it every day since."

The words hit Justin square in the pit of his stomach, like a punch. There is something inherently sad about the picture in his hands, despite the smiles. Lost loves are the most common tale in the world. His grandmother had told him that once, his dad's mother, in her lilting Sicilian accent, part of a story about meeting a boy one summer in Capri, about losing him when the fall came and real life started back up again. Lost love and first love all rolled up in one.

When he thinks back, twenty years from now, on the events spinning around him-what is he going to remember?

He pays for his drink and runs out of the bar, gasping in the fresh air greedily. Maybe it will clear the smoke and alcohol from his brain. He needs to think, and think hard, about the jittery feeling in his stomach when he thinks about the impression he was giving off; lovesick, losing the girl. Is he those things? Or is he a brother in a messed up situation that he doesn't know how to get out of?

So he walks. He walks and thinks about everything. About Alex and talking cabs and guitars, about being invisible and hugs so tight they cut off his breath.

He turns the corner, heading uptown, and his thought turns as well; to watercolors and fireworks, arena rock and a blood red dress.

Justin thinks about Alex and all the conflicting, contradictory impressions he has of his sister. By the time he hits midtown, there isn't' a single thought in his head that doesn't have her in it. Hell, there's not a lot of his life that doesn't have her in it. It's always been about her, hasn't it? In some small way, in the big ones, always. From the minute she was born, Alex was the epicenter of the Russo family. Justin used to resent that, resent her.

He sees now that she's been that to him since the moment he first laid eyes on her. He just didn't see it until now.

…0…

_Washington; 2018 _

Annaleigh calls Max when they're on their way back to Alex's place. Even Justin could tell that she'd been suspicious of their change in plan-and he just met her. So while Max stands on the front stoop of Alex's townhouse in Georgetown, Justin follows her inside and tries to stave off the awkwardness of it all.

"Max will probably be on the phone for a while," he says, a blatant attempt at normalcy that falls short. "Annaleigh can talk."

Alex nods, taking off her jacket and hanging it on a peg by the front door. She's pushing her hair back out of her face when she faces him and her hand falls to the long chain around her neck. He's knows this move; it's her habit of trying to find an outlet for all the nervous energy flowing through her by finding something to occupy her hands.

Her nails are painted a dark red. A flash of memory hits him watching her wrap the chain around her fingers, only there's an inky black instead of red, and it's him wearing that necklace, not her.

She must see where his eyes are because she lets go and sticks her hands in the pockets of her jeans. "Well, I have a guest room down the hall, but it only has a twin bed. I guess one of you can take the couch."

Max popped through the door just then, saying he'd sleep on the couch. But Justin insists that Max sleep in the guest room. It feels…safer somehow, to have a little bit of distance.

He lays there on Alex's couch later that night, wide awake despite the lateness of the hour. Not that he was really expecting to sleep, not here, with her so close and the smell of her perfume invading his senses with every inhale. Feeling wired, he throws back the covers and wanders around Alex's living room realizing, with a pang, that through the years of isolation, he doesn't know his sister anymore. There are framed photographs on her mantle of people he's never seen before, never heard of. A small glass bowl on the coffee table holding receipts and ticket stubs that he knows nothing about. Paintings line the walls and he doesn't know which, if any, she painted.

There is one thing that he does recognize though. The sketch of a red dress, encased in an expensive looking mahogany frame, directly above her television.

He hasn't seen this since that night-the night everything changed, and everything pops up; fresh and crisp and flashback-ready and the images are so strong and so vivid he can almost taste the alcohol and cherry lip gloss again.

He hears a noise and turns, seeing Alex wander in from the hallway in her pajamas and her hair going every which way on her head. He gulps. So hard it hurts. "Hey."

Alex fidgets with the bottom of her tee shirt and looks at him like she doesn't quite know how to deal with him there in her living room. Maybe even in her life period. Her eyes land on the wall where her sketch hangs and he can see her posture stiffen. "Well," she says finally, "please refrain from feeding the elephant in the room."

Justin laughs, some of the tension leaving his body. "I couldn't sleep."

"Me neither," she tells him. "I was gonna grab some ice cream. You want to join me?"

"Sure."

He sits at the small table in her kitchen while she grabs the carton and two long spoons. She hands him one and sits down in the chair across from him, digging in.

They sit in silence, working their way through the gallon of double fudge chunk in front of them, avoiding eye contact. When he stretches his foot out underneath the table his toe brushes against her calf and Alex drops her spoon to the table with a clatter. She cruses under her breath and jumps up to grab a paper towel to wipe the ice cream off the table.

"Awkward," Justin mutters under his breath, watching Alex throw away the paper towel and stare at the chair she'd been sitting in like she thinks its going to bite her. He scrubs a hand over his face. This is getting old-and weird-not being able to even be in the same room with his own sister without someone else there to buffer.

Alex is looking at him strangely when he opens his eyes, head tilted to the side, bottom lip between her teeth. "Have I had way too much sugar again, or is there something on your arm?"

He looks down at the sleeve of his shirt, but sees nothing so he bends at the elbow, lifting his arm until he can see the back of his bicep. Or most of it. "Where?"

With a roll of her eyes, Alex walks over and lifts up the edge of the white cotton to expose the black script on his skin. "You have a tattoo," she breathes, almost sounding awed, and when her fingers ghost over the letters he feels goosebumps pop up all over his body. "_Honi soit qui mal y pense_." Alex tries the words out, and actually gets a lot of them right and Justin lets the squirmy feeling in his stomach run its course at hearing her speak Latin not involving a spell. She looks at his face like he's someone new and asks what it means.

"It's the motto of the Order of the Garter," he tells her. "I got it the night I finished my thesis. I was drunk and some friends talked me into it." He prepares himself for the quip about Latin tattoos while he was drunk and his general nerdhood.

"Not really great with the non-English." Now she sounds like the Alex he remembers, sans insult. "Care to translate?"

Justin takes a deep breath. "The shame be upon him who thinks evil where there is none."

It could mean any number of things. Justin's a PhD, a history buff, a Catholic. Really, the words could be referring to anything or nothing at all.

But they don't. They pertain to her and when her chocolate eyes lock onto his he knows that she understands that fact.

…0…

_New York; 2012_

Justin is surprised that Alex actually answers the phone. He'd been hopeful, but a little pessimistic. That's his thing.

"I'm busy," is her greeting, all annoyed and harsh.

"Meet me at East Sixtieth," Justin replies, crossing the street to the subway, dashing around couples and the occasional bum to get down the stairs faster.

There's silence and for a second he thinks she's hung up on him. "Are you high? It's almost 9 o'clock and you want me to come all the way uptown? Do you have any idea how long that's going to take at this hour?"

His phone cuts out (underground and all) so he isn't forced to respond to her very valid point and he prays to whoever will listen (he seriously doubts God is happy about the two of them) that she doesn't think he hung up and that she'll be there.

He may not have the guts again.

When he finally sees her through a break in the crowd, Justin feels something he's never felt before; kind of a ker-thump, his heart hitting so hard inside his ribcage he honestly wouldn't be shocked if it were to just break free from his chest and land right there on the sidewalk.

As Alex nears, two things become obvious. One; she had clearly been in the middle of working on her collection when he called her if the tape measure around her neck and colored pencils in her ponytail are any indication. Two; she's pissed. Full on pursed lips, narrowed eyes, steam about to come out of her ears pissed.

That would explain her leaving the apartment looking like she just ran away from a sweatshop.

"I'm giving you exactly 10 seconds to tell me why you so desperately needed me here for," she spits out, whole body radiating animosity and irritation. She crosses her arms and cocks a hip, foot tapping while she waits for said explanation.

Instead, he hold a cup out to her. "I got you a frozen hot chocolate."

Alex's face softens. He grins. There's little else that can make Alex as happy as sugar.

"East Sixtieth. I should have known," she lowers her bag off her shoulder and sits down on the steps of a closed bridal shop, eyes straying over to Serendipity 3. "Remember when we used to make Dad bring us up here every Saturday and we'd race through peppermint sundaes?"

"Yeah." He chuckles and settles on the step below hers. "You best me every time."

"Well duh, you were too worried that brain freeze would cause permanent damage."

Outraged, he begins spouting off the statistics that support his theory but she cuts him off. Alex moves down one step so they're sitting side by side, shoulders and elbows touching. They both sip their drinks, quiet falling over them. The sun began setting a while ago, but a red haze is still coloring the sky, and the way Alex is backlit by the color seems to make her features softer, fuzzier. Alex, but not entirely the Alex he's used to.

"Alex, I'm sorry. I'm not entirely sure what I did, but I'm sorry." He holds up a hand to stop her retort, surprised that, for once, she obliges and lets him continue. "What I do know is that I like the way we've been lately. I like you enjoying my company. And I want that to continue." He lets his voice fade off, lets silence fall so she knows he's finished.

"So…" Alex sounds uncertain. Odd. "You like that we're getting along?" He nods, she goes on. "Do you like…" A heavy blush blooms on her face. "You know, the rest?"

Like it? The heady emotions that flood his body when she kisses him, that make him dizzy and smiley, would say yes. And that's what he tells her, feeling a smidge of manly pride when she turns even redder and ducks her head. Again, odd.

Justin places a finger under her chin, tips her face up to look her in the eye. This is The Moment.

"I'm not sure what we're doing here," he tells her, sad smile on his face, "or if I think it's right…but I don't think I want to give it up either."

The hot chocolate becomes forgotten, sitting, thawing, by Alex's foot. Her head ends up on his shoulder, hands clasped on her lap, a mirror of his. "We're really doing this then? Whatever this is?"

"I guess," he breathes out, distracted by her propping her chin on his shoulder when she begins to talk, her nose sliding innocently along the line of his jaw.

When she begins to needle him about that answer, he kisses her, really kisses her, with everything he has, like he's never kissed her before and there goes that ker-thump again. Alex starts, then yields under him and molds her hands to the back of his neck.

That's the moment the little rational voice in the back of his head reminds him that, hello, they're in public and, whoa, they're related and maybe this is best done in private. And he's about to tell her that, really he is, but then he feels her fingers slip under the open collar of his shirt, her hand hot against the rapid beating of his heart, and as he opens his mouth to her it was enough for him to forget all the supposed to's and should's running around in his head. He tells that little voice to just shut up for a while.

There really is no turning back now, Justin realizes when they finally pull apart to the scandalized throat clearing of two old ladies walking by and he curses under his breath, chuckling, and reluctantly relinquishes his hold on her waist.

Alex giggles, foreheads still pressed to his almost painfully, and her breath ghosts over his face. "I didn't even know you knew words like that," she teases, and he can hear the smile in her voice.

"Oh, I'm just full of surprises."

…0…

_Washington; 2018_

Max tells him that he's going back to New York the next day. Alex is nowhere to be found so Justin offers to take a cab with him to the airport.

"You're staying, aren't you?" Max asks with all the seriousness of someone who already knows the answer and hopes that they're wrong.

Does Justin dare tell him about last night? About the feelings he got by just being around her and the unexplainable loneliness that crept in when she went back to her bedroom while he stared at that sketch until he finally fell asleep around dawn. Does he look his brother in the eye and tell him the gnawing fear that's lingered in the back of his mind all these years, the dread of what he felt that summer coming back, is uncoiling inside of him and making him question every move he's made since he left New York?

No. He just says that there are some things they need to talk about.

Max? He looks skeptical. Doubtful. A touch disappointed. And damn it, it _hurts_.

He leaves, going back to the airport by himself so he can head back to his life, leaves Justin with his problems and his guilt and his fear.

It's not hard to figure out where Alex hides her spare keys. Hollow books are easy enough to spot when you know who you're dealing with. As much as Alex has changed, there's no way she's actually read Descarte's Discourse on Method and Related Writings. No way.

He leaves her a note and heads out, needing to clear his thoughts, get some perspective.

Less than a block in and he falls in love with Alex's neighborhood. Spring is in full bloom, flowers budding out and the air is fragrant. There's a coffee shop around the corner, across the street from a sweet little park, and the call of caffeine beckons him inside.

The girl who takes his order is perky and sweet and asks him if he's new to the neighborhood.

"I'm just here for a few days."

"With your girlfriend?" She bats huge green eyes at him, smiling in that "Hi, I'm cute" way you can only have when you're under 21. She's flirting with him. It shocks the hell out of him. It shouldn't, but it does. He's just so not in that headspace and even if he were, this girl can't be older than 18 at most. She's just a kid.

"Steffi, stop hitting on the customers." Another girl, slightly older, comes up beside her and offers Justin an apologetic smile while Steffi retreats, sneaking looks at him from the corner of her eye.

"Sorry about that," she says. Her nametag reads 'Maggie' and Justin grins at her.

"Its no problem," he assures her. "She just threw me for a second. I'm not used to teenagers flirting with me."

Maggie shrugs, wiping down the counter. "She's harmless. Boy crazy, but harmless."

He's about to order a doughnut or something to go with his coffee when he sees a smile similar to Steffi's pop up on Maggie's pretty face. "Didn't I see you last night? You went home with my neighbor I think."

"Alex?"

She smiles bigger, but tighter. "Yeah. She's a sweetheart, isn't she?"

Justin's not quiet sure what to say to that sentiment, so he sips his coffee, leaves her to interpret his non-answer.

"So where is she this morning?"

Shrugging, Justin tosses his now empty cup into a trash bin at the end of the counter. "Don't know. She was gone when I got up this morning."

Maggie's lips curve up, all smug and the like. Justin smacks himself in his mind for succumbing to the allure of fresh dark roast and coming in here. He should have just stayed at Alex's townhouse and waited for her.

"But," he adds quickly, "her note did say she'd be back soon, so I better go. Nice to meet you." With that, he dashes out, purposefully ignoring whatever her parting words are.

He stuffs his hands into his pockets and keeps walking, just walking, hoping that he doesn't run into anyone else that knows his sister along the way.

The peal of church bells beak into his thoughts. Wow, he had totally forgotten that is was Sunday. What is up with his head?

He stands on the corner and watches at the people streaming out of the church across the street, all dressed in their Sunday best, looking well, respectable. What a novel concept that seems now. Funny. Justin used to think that if anything, he was a stand up, respectable guy. But things change.

When the minister walks out Justin stands a little straighter, tries to appear as inconspicuous as possible while standing on the street watching the congregation. And then the minister turns to talk to the woman on his left.

Its Alex. At church. Voluntarily.

Will miracles never cease?

From the distance, Justin thinks his sister looks like someone else in her dark blue dress, very conservative, and just the kind of girl any guy walking down the street would take notice of, beautiful and almost shining in the late morning sun.

She must sense someone staring at her, for she begins to scan the crowd of people milling about and then her eyes lock onto him on the corner, observing. He waves, at a loss of what else to do.

He has no idea what to do.

...0...


	5. Chapter 5

_**Kinda short, kinda filler. It happens.**_

…0…

_Washington; 2018_

Alex introduces him to the minister as Justin, just Justin, and he gets hit with déjà vu waiting for the familial connection that never gets said.

It's so close to her townhouse that they walk back, Alex saying there was no point in taking her car just a few blocks. She stops just a few feet away from the church and pulls her heels off, walking barefoot the rest of the way. The sight makes him grin.

"What?" she demanded, seeing his expression. "Try three inch shoes sometime and see how long you last."

Justin holds his hands up in defeat. She does have a point.

"So…church."

"Church," Alex agrees.

"Not Mass," he goes on. "Protestant church."

Sighing, Alex swings her purse to her other shoulder. "It makes me feel better."

He can certainly understand that.

"And besides," she continues, "I was never a very good Catholic anyway. Confession, Lent, it just wasn't for me."

"I can see that," he teases and she shoves at his shoulder with a roll of her eyes. "But I still never thought I'd see you in any church voluntarily."

They're at the corner now, where they cross back to her street. A car passes and they stop, Alex looking up at him with the utmost seriousness on her face. "It's been a long time, Justin. Things change. People change."

God, does he know that as well as anyone.

They stand there for a few seconds, Justin lost momentarily trying to decipher some unnamed flicker in her eyes until a car horn interrupts them. Alex jumps and turns to wave to whoever is in the car. Blinking rapidly, she crosses the street, bypassing a few fallen leaves and twigs, leaving him to catch up to her.

"Do you still go to Mass?" she asks when he catches up to her.

He shrugs. "Not as much as I should probably."

"I guess there's not really much point anymore," she remarks, slowing as they come up in front of the stoop leading up to her house. He thinks how pretty it is the daylight, how it looks like her. "You can only ask for forgiveness so many times before it starts to feel a little pointless."

The logic in that statement, no matter how flawed, strikes a cord. She may be right. One of the reasons that Justin went from weekly Mass and almost daily confession to only sporadic, holiday worship was because it stopped feeling like it was working. His guilt eventually evened itself out. Solitude and self imposed exile does that to a person. Maybe he even thought that cutting himself off from all the people he loved was punishment enough. Penance enough.

"I have to get changed and get to the gallery," she tells him. "Callie and I alternate Sundays and today is mine so…"

"Oh." Justin cringes at ho small his voice sounds to his own ears. This is brush off if ever he heard one. "Right. I guess I'll just…you know, call about a flight then."

"Okay." It's all so silent and awkward after that, so tense that even Alex's movements are jerky when she finally turns and walks down the hall to her room, the sound of her bedroom door shutting making Justin flinch as if struck.

…0…

_New York; 2012_

Things after the night uptown are different.

They can't ever be a normal couple, they know that. There can't be any more kissing on the steps of public places, no more silly squabbles about things that make them conspicuous. They have to act normal, and most importantly, not draw any attention to themselves.

Alex seems to enjoy that last part the most judging from the way she smirks at him when she catches him poring over a new comic like it was the Holy Grail and makes some not too veiled comments about the varying level of dorkiness.

Jack, who never seems to get more than a foot away from Alex at any given time she's in the restaurant despite what the proximity does to his coordination, strikes up a conversation with him about the Golden Age shortly after that. He's a nice kid, Justin realizes. And so smitten with his sister that he can barely see straight.

"She's just so…different."

Yeah, Alex is definitely different. Justin can attest to that personally. He looks up and meets her eye over Jack's shoulder and she winks at him.

He doesn't ask Jack if the rumor of his showing up wherever he knows Alex will be is true. The sight of him hovering at a sunglasses rack not ten minutes after they tell their mother that the two of them are going to walk over to check out the vendors on West Broadway confirms it for him.

Now that Justin knows exactly how watched they are (her, him by association), he knows how careful they need to be as well.

He ends up with the late dinner shift one night, about a week later, since there was never any doubt that he wasn't going to be working in the shop over his visit, and comes upstairs after cleanup duty to find Max and Alex both asleep on the couch, their parents long gone to bed.

His mom has been on a cleaning spree lately and there are stacks of assorted items littering every available surface. He sees an old gingham throw tossed over the back of the dining room chair and an idea forms in his head.

"Alex," he shakes her shoulder a little while later, careful not to wake Max and ruin the plan. "Wake up."

Her eyes blink open, hazy until they focus on him. He presses a finger to his lips, cocking a head at Max at the other end of the sofa and stands, hand out toward her. "Come on."

She stands, wary expression on her face, and wraps a blanket around herself before she places her palm in his.

"Close your eyes," he whispers, leading her over to the staircase, just far enough as to not disturb Max and pulls out his wand, incanting almost silently. There's a soft 'whoosh' feeling of air blowing around their ankles, followed by the second of misplacement when they land and regain their equilibrium.

"Okay, open."

Alex's eyes flutter and then widen once she realizes where they are, lips falling apart in a silent expression of awe. "Oh my God, Justin, this…this is amazing." Then her gaze falls on the blanket, the mound of pillows, the picnic basket. "Who would have guessed you actually are romantic under it all?"

"Well, it was just a matter of finding the right girl to enjoy a starlight picnic on top of the Brooklyn Bridge."

"What kind of snacks did you bring?" She digs into the basket while he chuckles and settles beside her. She rips open the bag of Starbursts and pops an orange one into her mouth, grinning. He didn't even know if you could consider a basket full of candy a picnic, but he was going with it.

A ball of light streaks across the sky, catching both their attention. "Is that a shooting star?"

"I think so," Justin says. He stares at her, at the open wonderment on her face and feels himself fall, hard, and crash land directly in the center of hopelessly enamored. "Make a wish."

Her eyes slip shut and she purses her lips up in concentration. "Okay," she announces. Justin laughs, falling back into the pillows and snags one of the Starbursts for himself. When Alex lies down against his side and tosses her blanket over him, he points out the constellations that are visible, ignoring her ribs and barbs, and she twines her legs through his when her feet get cold, head in the crook of his shoulder.

…0…

_Washington; 2018_

Alex leaves her number at the Gallery for him, just so he can call her with his plans. She doesn't hug him goodbye, doesn't even say it. All she does say is "It was good to see you." before disappearing out her front door.

And of course the only flight to Chapel Hill isn't until the next afternoon.

Justin looks down at the phone in his hand, thinking about his promise to call her right away with his plans. But then it dawns on him that he's alone in Alex's house. The temptation is too much for him to resist.

He's in the kitchen, so he starts there, just looking around. Really looking-trying to gleam some insight into the girl he doesn't even know anymore. He doesn't even remember Alex cooking anything when they were growing up, but it certainly appears as though she uses her kitchen quite a bit. Cookbooks and grocery lists are scattered about every type of cooking utensil to be found is there somewhere.

But the dishes are sparse and that says a lot. She eats at home a lot, alone.

His stomach clenches.

The living room looks comfy and lived in, art books in heaps on the shelves and coffee table, magazines and CDs stacked on top of them, photos and knick knacks arranged in a fashion that made little sense to him, but that was unsurprising. Justin smiles as he takes it all in. He feels like he's getting to know her all over again.

It's a nice feeling.

Then his eyes light on the hallway floor and he follows the line down to the end where Alex's bedroom is.

Does he dare?

His feet take him there because he can't seem to make them listen to the fact it's a bad idea, and he lingers heavily against her doorway before stepping in.

It reminds Justin very little of Alex's bedroom back in New York, which had still been covered in pink fur and hanging beads last time he'd been there, with the soft, muted shades of blues and the black and white prints on the wall.

Take away the feminine bent of the photos and the teddy bear on her dresser and it looks eerily like his own room in North Carolina.

The realization is, for lack of a better word, disturbing.

There's only one thing in the room that seems like it could belong to the sister he knew and that's the antiquey looking vanity sitting in the corner piled high with little glass bowls full of jewelry and tubes of make up. He sees the heaps of silver and colored beads, the lip gloss and perfume bottles, and he remembers the little girl who used to beg him to let her try out their mother's make up on him, the girl he sat and watched from her bed while she chattered about anything that popped into her head and got ready to go out. Running a finger along the edge of the glass top, Justin imagines the woman (so distant, withdrawn) from the top of church steps in her quiet dress and painful heels sitting there, applying her eye shadow so carefully, just like she used to.

Then reality kicks in and the full weight of what he's doing dawns on him. This is the road to ruin, he knows that, and it leads down a familiar path of hurt and resentment that he, they, can not go down again.

He's about to leave when his gaze falls on a jumble of dark blue beads that he recognizes. Rosary beads, porcelain, with a crystal cross that their grandmother gave her when she was confirmed, a family heirloom that she had always treated with the utmost respect.

Old habits die hard he thinks, running the cool beads through his fingers.

…0…

_New York, 2012_

Alex takes up silk screening at the local Y, bringing home dozens of scarves that she gives to Theresa or drapes over her lampshade to see what kind of 'mood' it will set.

"Its kind of like one of those rotating camp lights," he remarks and stuffs a pillow under his head, looking at the flower patterns on Alex's ceiling, "only it doesn't move."

"And you get straight A's," Alex muttered.

He props himself up on his hands and watches her sew a zipper into a pretty pink top with lace down the front. Not something she would wear, but she handles it as though it is the single most important thing in her vicinity right now. He likes that about her, how focused she is.

Is it wrong that he sort of likes it because that's a trait she's always chided him about. The irony, unspoken of, is not lost on him.

They're less than a month away from the battle and the tension in the house is slowly building, leaving them all to deal with it their own ways. Max spends more time at the garage than ever (he should be practicing, Justin thinks) and he doesn't talk that much when he is at home, preferring to take magic books up to his room alone. Theresa cleans almost constantly, and Jerry tries in vain to get them all to talk about what will happen once its over and two of them are powerless.

When Paige calls and tells her that she met a guy in the Hamptons and they're getting married, begging Alex to come to Greenwich for the wedding, Alex spends three days straight making a new dress to wear.

He watches her, occasionally doing some research on his senior engineering project, as an outlet of his own because there really isn't that much else to do with none of his old friends around now Alex has even said that him being chummy with Jack bothers her.

She spent two paychecks from the restaurant on an entire bolt of peach colored silk, screening it with exotic looking blooms in bright pink and turquoise to be the foundation of her collection, and her dress for the wedding comes from it. She makes him give her an honest opinion of it the night before they go (she insists he come) and quite honestly, she the sight makes it hard for him to breath it suits her so well and he presses her up against the wall of her bedroom, hands in her hair, until they hear their dad calling them through the open door and spring apart.

He begins to doubt agreeing to go with her on an overnight trip to Connecticut. They've avoided disaster so far, now it just feels like they're courting it.

…0…


	6. Chapter 6

_New York; 2012_

"I think it's nice that you're going with Alex to the wedding," Theresa tells him. Instead of an answer he shoves a forkful of pancakes in his mouth, followed just as quickly with at least half of the glass of milk his mother had set out for him.

It's better than telling him that pretty much all of Alex's friends from school think he's her boyfriend.

And much, much better than admitting he actually sort of is.

Alex comes down the stairs, the wheels of her suitcase banging, loud and repetitive, all the way to the bottom. She stands it upright when she finally gets to the bottom, and drapes the garment bag housing her peach dress over it. "Whew," she exhales heavily, pushes her hair off her neck, and sits on the stool next to Justin where their mother has set out a plate for her.

"Think you packed enough?" Justin eyes the lumbering pink suitcase, a dubious expression on his face. It looks like it outweighs her by at least 5 pounds.

She tosses off a small glare in his direction before she digs into her breakfast. "With Paige, you never really know what's going to happen. Just trying to be prepared."

"It's a wedding-what could you need besides a nice dress?"

Giving him that look-that patented 'Justin has no clue about girls no matter what he says' look that she does so well, she shakes her head and pats his arm as if he were some old man who was out of touch with reality. "Well, we went to the Met once for an assignment and wound up in a biker bar in Jersey playing Musical Jeopardy with a guy named Paco so what do you think?" she says.

"What?" Theresa demands, anger marring her features.

"Uh…" Alex grapples for something, anything, to get her out of her statement. Justin knows the look. "Bicycle bar. Fruit smoothies, green tea. Latest thing." She rolls a piece of bacon in a pancake and stands, latching onto her brother's arm. "Let's go."

Wincing, he tries to tug free from her grip. "Fingernails!"

…0…

Alex falls asleep almost the second the train begins its slow crawl out of the station. By the time they reach full momentum, her head is on his shoulder and she's making little puffy breathing noises into his shirt. Not that expected anything else. She was always the first one to fall asleep on family road trips, even when they were small.

He lets her sleep, knowing full well the wrath of a cranky Alex roused from sleep too soon, only nudging her awake when the porter announces 20 minutes before they pull into the Hartford station. She's groggy when she looks up at him, but she snuggles against him and nuzzles her face into the sleeve of his shirt while she mumbles incomprehensible babbles, and he can't tell if whether she's fighting sleep or consciousness.

They rent a car at the station, full of city people coming out to summer homes, and it takes forever, especially with Alex grumbling the whole time until he reminds her that she's the one who told Paige not to pick them up since she was going to be too busy preparing for the ceremony. It's only when she knows that he's not going to let go of the fact that he's right does she stop whining and fixes a petulant glare on the rental clerk instead.

She gives him the directions to Paige's family estate outside the city. They only get lost twice and he only yells once (he considers that a step up from the last time they attempted an outing together) about her terrible note taking before a gardener at a neighboring house directs to the correct driveway.

The place is a palace, all white siding against a brilliant blue ocean backdrop and vivid roses framing the cobblestone driveway. The top of a white tent on the beach is only just visible from where they are, looking like a dot on the waves in the distance.

Hearing a squeal, both turn to see Paige rushing towards them. When she flings her arms around Alex, the force almost knocks them both backwards, but Justin manages to right them with a hand on Alex's back. Paige grins at him, flashing a snow white smile, every inch the girl he met at the salsa club down to her thick eyeliner, radiating happiness in a setting where she looks so out of place.

"The rehearsal dinner is at 6; cocktails start an hour beforehand, but come down whenever you're ready." It's all in one long breath. Impressive. "The ceremony starts at noon, but I was really hoping you'd get ready with me and the horrid girls my mother is making me have as bridesmaids?" Paige pushes her lower lip out in an exaggerated pout; hands clasped in front of her chest, and give Alex the most convincing puppy eyes Justin has ever seen.

Of course Alex caves.

It's already close to 3, so she leaves them to settle into their room.

Alex gulps visibly (and audibly) when he opens the door, and it doesn't escape Justin's notice how she hovers by the door even after she shuts it.

"Alex, you okay?"

He has a terrifying thought, looking at her looking at the bed like its Dante's Seventh Circle, that maybe she's not uncomfortable for the reason he thinks. Or maybe she is.

He is, and not even trying to hide it.

Clearing his throat in a bout of nervousness energy, he sets his suitcase on the bed and begins to unpack. If he keeps busy, he can mask the terror gurgling in his stomach, the possibilities of what could, may, happen here if they aren't careful.

So he focuses on unpacking, on carefully putting his things away and arranging them just so, on setting some tiny bit of order. This weekend is so up in the air, anything could happen and they have to be cautious, he thinks, and he just needs a minute to be calm and to be by himself-if only in his own head.

Alex is still by the door, he can feel her eyes on him, can feel her nerves and unease. Justin wants so badly to tell her that everything is okay, but he can't. He's not so sure it is all okay.

"Do…" she begins, voice shaky and _so not Alex_. "Do you want to go down for the drinks, or wait for dinner?"

"Either is fine with me. Your call." He shuts the top drawer of the nightstand that now holds the book he brought with him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Justin sees Alex shift back and forth on her feet before finally flopping her garment bag onto the other side of the large bed and unzips it. The closet is on his side, so when she hands off her peach dress and a few tops on hangers to him to put away without a word, he takes it that everything is back to normal.

…0…

_Washington; 2018_

Alex doesn't answer when he calls her at the gallery. She'd left the number for him, and no doubt must have known the unfamiliar number and area code must belong to him, but he ended up leaving his explanation to her voicemail instead of to his sister.

As it is, he sits on her front stoop with a can of diet soda, thinking about how this became his life.

Around sunset, she shows up, getting out of her car with two pizza boxes and a smaller box on top. Justin takes them from her and she grabs his soda as they begin to walk back inside.

"You know," she stops with her hand on the doorknob and turns to face him, "why don't we just eat out here."

He agrees if for no other reason than avoiding conflict is a must in any dealings with Alex. So he goes to put her purse inside and grab some napkins and more drinks and they sit there in silence and work their way through the pizzas-one pepperoni and pineapple for her, and mushroom, olive, and onion for him. They get strange looks of course, each of them with an open pizza box on their laps, but they have never been able to agree on toppings in their lives and he's, more than once, seen her put away an entire pizza in one sitting. The smaller box turns out to be garlic bread that's perhaps the best he's ever had, and he eats more than he usually would just to have an excuse not to talk.

At least until the quiet gets to be too much. "So…how was work?"

Alex shrugs. "It was okay. Sundays are iffy. Sometimes its crazy busy and other is just a bunch of lookers.

"Good."

She blew her bangs out of her face, the way she used to do. Justin looked away, down the street and at the townhouses and apartment building lining the quiet street.

"How's the research going?" she asks him, voice strained.

Fine, he tells her. Says a little about the classes he teaches, about life in North Carolina. Shockingly, she actually seems interested. "I never thought I'd like teaching this much, but I guess when it's a subject you love it just kind of takes over everything else."

"I know," she remarks, tilts her head back to drain her soda can. "I taught an art class for kids a few months ago for a friend of mine and it was…"

"Surprising?" he offers.

There's a sparkle in her eye that he hasn't seen sine he got to DC, a hint of the old Alex. It's nice. "Yeah."

This is it, Justin thinks, and the air around them seems to thicken, this is the moment.

He's been waiting for it ever since he walked onto the airport in Chapel Hill, for the confirmation he's needed for almost six years.

This is a moment of clarity, so severe and utterly _real_, so solid, that he has difficulty breathing. He imagines this was how Carter felt when he opened King Tut's tomb for the first time and the full weight of what he was seeing hit him. An 'I told you so' floats through his head, his subconscious in glee at being right, though this is hardly a good thing. In fact, it could be one of the worst-if not the worst-thing that has ever happened to him.

More than half a decade of wondering and regret, of prayer and pretending, and now Justin Russo knows that he is still harboring a deep affection for his sister that he is not supposed to.

Now what?

…0…

Justin tosses and turns on the couch, unable to sleep for the second night in a row. Alex had seemed confused by his refusing to take the now vacant guest room to opt for her living room again. But she went with it, offering him a slight smile before she bid him good night.

The few hours they sat on the front steps with their pizza seemed to help things between them. He learned that Alex had taken up knitting since he'd seen her last, and he'd gotten a good laugh at the image of his sister, always too cool for everything in her own mind, with a pair of knitting needles, until she shoved at his shoulder. She told him about a trip she took to Spain the year before, with Callie from the gallery, and watching a real bullfight, and a disastrous attempt the previous summer to learn basic car maintenance.

"Didn't you date a mechanic once?" he teased, causing her to make a face at him.

"I'm lucky I didn't break my car."

Comfortable conversation, free of awkward tension, was something he didn't think he and Alex would ever be capable of again. (Sort of a side effect of getting physical with your sibling.) But now he's left alone with his thoughts and they are slowly driving him mad. Maybe if he splashes some cold water on his face it will help to clear his head a little.

And it may have, not that he knows for he comes out of the bathroom and Alex is sitting on the couch, hugging the pillow to her chest.

"Alex?"

"Its still there, isn't it?" She doesn't look at him, but she doesn't need to.

She could only be referring to one thing.

Her very body language is screaming despair and grief and he does hate himself for it, but that doesn't quell the tiny bit of relief at knowing it isn't just him feeling this way after all this time, after everything that happened.

Perhaps that's why he doesn't do the right thing. He doesn't tell her that it's all in her head, that of course it's gone-how could it not be after what happened in New York?

Alex is his little sister, and it has always been his job to protect her. He failed in that task once, and he vowed that no matter what happened he would never, ever, let something like that happen to her again-even if it meant he stayed away from her for the rest of his days.

If he were the man he used to believe himself to be; a moral man, a good man, a good brother, he would do what is best for Alex right now and deny it all exactly the same way he should have done the first time she kissed him.

All it takes to convince Justin that he is not that man (and maybe never was) is the way his heart lurches at the sight of Alex wiping her cheeks, head still fixed solely away from him like she can't stand to let him see her cry. He's kneeling in front of her on the carpet in less time than it takes to breathe. Some of the wetness from her tears rub against his ring finger when he takes hold of her hands and it drives the whole situation home in a way so wholly different than anything else has. Alex has cried over this, their situation before, and he's seen it. Hell, he caused it. There is pain involved in whatever it is that has taken over the two of them to make them feel a way they both know they shouldn't, so much pain that has never truly healed, has never been forgotten, and he whispers that he's sorry over and over now that it's too late for it to do any good.

"I missed you so much, Justin." Another tear drips slowly down her cheek. He watches it path until it disappears into the corner of her mouth. "But I was so ashamed…and I was afraid of what would happen if I saw you again, of what Mom and Dad would think-"

He cuts her off, squeezing her hands as tight as he can without hurting her, just to assure them both that no harm has been done yet, tonight. "So was I. I was terrified." He offers up a weak smile and a shrug he hopes will convey his feelings better than his words can. "We're not supposed to feel this way. But it won't seem to go away."

"It should never have started," she says simply.

Her statement is one he's said to himself so many times, thousands, millions, but it feels different coming from Alex. It feels weightier, holds more meaning.

Growing up, Justin always wondered what it would take to make Alex feel regret over her actions. Turns out it was him; her most frequent target.

Alex goes on, seemingly unable to stop now that she had really begun to open up. "I tried so hard to not think about you. I left my home, my family-"

"I never wanted that."

With an eye roll, she replies, "I know that, Justin. It was just too hard; seeing Max's face when he looked at me, like I was some kind of freak, Mom and Dad with those pained expressions; all hurt and disappointed…I had to get out of there."

She's giving him a glimpse into her heart. He sees that, respects it. Knows how hard it must be for her to open herself up this way. Emotions and consequences and responsibility-they were never things Alex liked to talk about, let alone take on, but she did it. She took the full blame of what transpired between the two of them back when they let lust and youth and want overtake their common sense-and Justin let her. He ran and left their mutual burden for her to deal with and he will never stop being guilty and ashamed for it.

"Why do you think I haven't been home since I left?" It's not much, but he wants her to know that she's not suffering alone.

A different expression crosses her face. Not the sadness, or the bereavement he was just witness to, something else. Something darker, deeper. Something flavored in anger and bitterness, directed squarely in his direction.

"I don't know. Is it the same reason you haven't spoken to me since I walked out of the lair?"

Justin's reasons for cutting ties with his sister are complicated. There was nothing involving malice behind it, no anger at her. He did avoid her, all thoughts of her that he could, and he'd imagined the same could be considered true for her as well, taking her silence past that night to be his confirmation. He thought that perhaps there was nothing to be said. Or, worse still, it was the opposite-there was too much; too much had happened and neither one of them had the desire or strength to broach such a painful subject. Not while it was still so fresh, and not after it had started to fade.

Now he thinks, maybe, it was just him.

Or it could be that his guilt got the better of him and he just could never bear to face her.

Alex's face hardens and she pulls away from him, sitting straighter and further into the couch, distancing herself from him, eyes cold and molten all at once.

The pain is still there, like a hard throbbing in the very depth of his chest, never dulling and something else begins to take its place. Something white and hot and burning.

Something like shame.

…0…

_Hartford, Connecticut; 2012_

The rehearsal dinner takes forever and Justin has never been so bored in his life. Paige is the only person he knows besides Alex and she's absconded somewhere with his sister, leaving him to fend for himself in a room full of investment bankers and lawyers and their over privileged, boarding schooled offspring.

At this point, he'd even be grateful to see one of the other people from the salsa club. At least it would be someone he could talk to.

Alex has been gone about 20 minutes before some older lady who looks strikingly similar to Paige sidles up to him and asks for a light.

"I don't smoke," he tells her, trying to think of a polite way to get out of and hide in his room until the wedding starts.

But that doesn't deter her a bit, and she steps closer in Justin's personal space with an all too telling gleam in her eyes, giving off a heavy whiff of expensive perfume. When her hand begins to creep up his shoulder the panic sets in and he backs up away from her. He collides with something slight yet solid, something that smells like his sister.

"Having fun?" she asks, voice coated with false sweetness.

He turns to see her looking at him with a bemused expression, holding two glasses of champagne in her hands. She tosses one look over his shoulder at the woman and snorts. "I know you like older women, Justin, but seriously, she's old enough to be your grandma."

"And you would be?" Justin backs away, leaving the two of them face to face, wondering if the blonde's steely expression would make Alex's amused smile falter.

"I'm Paige's friend," Alex ticks her gaze towards him and then back, "and his date. Back off. He's not your pool boy and he's looking for a tip."

He hears the woman sputtering indignantly, "Well, I never." but Alex has shoved one of the glasses into his hand and taken hold of his other one, leading him away.

Stopping in front of the glass doors leading out to a terrace and down to the pool, she finally fixed a look on him that was less amused than it had just been. She sat her glass down on a small mahogany table behind her and crossed her arms over her chest. "I leave the room for 5 minutes and you try to pick up Paige's aunt?"

"What?!" he sputtered. Waving his arms (and spilling his drink) he began to fume. "You left me and went who knows where, and I don't know anybody, and then some cougar tries to pick me up and it's my fault?"

"Keep it down," she hisses, pausing to smile at a passing cater-waiter before glaring back in his direction. "This is a wedding."

"It's a rehearsal."

She pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance. "Same difference."

Justin felt himself deflate, his anger dissipating, when he realized what they were doing. It was ridiculous-they were being ridiculous.

"You're right." He takes a deep breath and gives his glass to another passing waiter with a loaded tray. "I think I'm gonna call it a night."

He watches Alex's face soften, her shoulders loosening. She steps closer and slides a hand into his. "Sounds like a good idea."

He pulls her in against his side and wraps an arm around her shoulder. It's cold in the room despite the open doors to outside, and her dress is strapless, and her skin feels a little cool to the touch. He rubs her shoulder, trying to warm her up, and pulls her in closer, making her smile up at him.

Paige intercepts them by the doorway. She gives them a mischievous smirk. "My, don't you two look cozy." Her eyes rove between the two of them. "Turning in?"

She's not even trying to hide what she's implying, and from the strong blush Justin can feel rising in his cheeks he knows that Alex will understand if she hadn't before-not that he doubted it. She was just a little less prudish than him to be honest, and better able to school her features and not give away what she was feeling.

He only wishes that he knew what she was feeling about the implications right now.

…0…

_Washington, 2018_

Alex has shifted on the couch, stretching herself out as much as she can-letting him know in no uncertain terms that she does not want him on the couch with her.

He sits on the floor in front of the couch instead, his shoulder at an angle with hers. He could turn and look right into her eyes if he wanted to, but chooses to fix his eyes on the empty fireplace across from him.

"Can I ask you something?"

Her voice is clogged with tears, raspy and cracking with emotion, and it quite literally makes his ears hurt. There aren't words to describe what its doing to his heart.

"Sure."

She turns her head to face him, he sees the movement with his peripheral vision and turns his face away.

"What happened between us…" She trails off into a deep breath. "Do you blame me?"

A beat passes, a breath. There's nothing else to lose here; he can't not be honest with her. He owes her that much. "I used to."

She pushes. Typical Alex. "And now?"

Justin turns his face back toward hers and finds himself less than a hair's width away from her face and his heart thumps painfully in his chest. "I blame myself."

"You shouldn't."

She turns onto her side, wipes a hand blindly over her cheeks. Propping her head up on her hand, she levels her gaze on his face, seeming to be committing his features to memory. Is she trying to remember? Trying to make a memory-just in case? He doesn't know, but it makes him nervous; her gaze raking over him and making him feel like she's stripping away the layers he's hidden himself under all this time.

"Maybe," he shrugs. "But I do. I used to blame you because I thought that if you hadn't kissed me, it never would have happened." His eyes flick up to hers. There's uncertainty darkening the already dark orbs, a lack of confidence that he's unused to. "And truth be told, I hate myself for thinking that. I could have stopped it at any point…and I didn't. I'm just as guilty as you are."

They were close enough that their breath mingled together. His breathing was growing heavier with each word, a heady blend of nerves and guilt and want, of regret and could have been's, coiling tight within him. She leaned in a little further and their mouths almost touched. His lips had parted as though of their own volition, his mouth going dry.

Something clicks into place like clockwork, like the fine metal teeth of a gear, and starts slowly winding away.

The pieces fit-_they fit_-and they're gradually beginning to tick, setting out a rhythm, a pulse, and everything else begins to fade into white noise.

…0…


	7. Chapter 7

This chapter's for Kat, who wouldn't let me quit, and Abuhin for giving me just about the nicest review ever.

…0…

_and your smell, it sticks to my clothes_

_Good Together; Teenager  
_

…0…

_Hartford; 2012_

There is a distinct lack of comfort after the two of them mange to get away from Paige that is almost audible.

Justin figures that if there were truly a way to convert feelings into sound, the air around him and Alex as they walk back up to their assigned rooms would, in his opinion, have the palpable echo of a thudding heartbeat, racing with the all adrenaline behind fear.

Side by side they make their way up through the labyrinth of a house, the noise of happy revelers below floating up to them.

He's not really sure what he expects to happen when they reach the door, but Alex walking in with quick strides in her too tall shoes like she's on fire certainly isn't it. Paige had told them that her relatives had a tendency to get lost when they'd had too much to drink, and advised them to lock their door. It was with that piece of advice in mind that Justin flicks the lock shut, hearing the tiny snick sound reverb inside his head.

He's not positive, but he thinks he sees Alex jump when she hears it.

She begins silently taking clothes out of the dresser across from the bed, first a pair of pajama bottoms that he recognizes, followed by an old shirt of his that she claimed before he left for college, going as far as to grab it out of his suitcase when he was packing.

It had been oddly sweet at the time. Confusing, but sweet.

Just as quiet, Justin walks to his side of the room, brushing past her and feeling the tension in her small frame, and pulls a pair of pajamas from the closet. He risks a glance up when the sound of her heels clacking along the hardwood floors reach his ears and finds her standing beside the nightstand on her side of the bed, back to him, removing her jewelry and sparkly hair thingies. The image makes him pause; her dark, dark hair tumbling down between her shoulder blades, obscuring the line of bright lemon yellow of her dress. She kicks her shoes away, loosing 3 inches in height, and turns to pick her clothes up and her eyes meet his.

Justin looks away, his cheeks flaming at being caught staring at her.

"You can, uh, you can go first in the bathroom," he stutters, wanting to curse. He hasn't stuttered in the presence of a girl in years.

She doesn't reply, just walks into the bathroom and shuts the door. Justin blows out a heavy puff of breath he started holding in when Paige bade them goodnight. His breath comes out shaky, nervous, and it almost hurts. He scrubs a hand over his face and begins to get ready for bed; toeing off his shoes and unbuttoning his shirt.

The bathroom door opens with a bang and Justin jumps.

Alex looks outwardly uncertain when she steps back out of the bathroom, still wearing her yellow dress, flushed and jittery, making small movements like she's second guessing what she's about to do. Her eyes though, the most obvious give away she has of her true feeling despite whatever her mouth may be saying, could almost be described as glowing they're so bright. Bright and anxious and _determined_.

There's a moment of inner debate going on in Justin's head. He doesn't know what she's going to do and therefore, doesn't know how to react. So he simply stands, unprepared and stock still, watching her wring her hands as she lets those big eyes of hers search his face.

"Alex…?" The quiet finally gets to him, and Justin begins to walk towards her. He's beginning to get a little scared here.

Meeting him halfway-the foot of the bed to be precise-she looks up at him, an expression of trepidation creeping its way into her eyes, dimming them. She's having an inner battle of her own he realizes, seeing her shake her head and close her eyes briefly, before she fixes a very pointed look on him.

The same look she used to get right before she had to explain to their father why Max was dangling from the ceiling or had purple hair.

When she acts, Justin couldn't be less surprised.

It wasn't like he was expecting her to reach out and take hold of his collar, to pull his face down to hers, to kiss him like she needed him more than oxygen.

Is he taken aback? Yes. Upset? No. Worried? He's not sure.

He is, however, a little too startled to react. At least at first. But then Alex seems to calm down, and the bruising force of her lips lighten up a little bit. She winds her arms around his neck, pressing herself into him, and he feels the tension leave both their bodies at once.

Maybe it is as wrong as they both know (and ignore) it to be, but he decides to just go with it.

Tangling a hand in the hair at the back of her head, Justin tilts her head to the side, the angle letting him deepen the kiss, the other hand sliding up her spine to settle on the back of her neck.

Some sort of noise makes its way out Alex's throat-something between a moan and a gasp; he feels it through every point of contact between their bodies. His grip on her tightens.

In the back of his mind he feels Alex's hands sliding forward; over his shoulders and down his chest, but it doesn't fully register until her fingers tangle in the fabric of his t-shirt and start pushing it up.

He hadn't even realized his dress shirt was gone.

Just like he didn't realize Alex was walking him backwards until the back of his legs hit the edge of the bed and he sits down to keep from falling down.

Her hands go into his hair as she tilts his head back, taking the lead for the moment before finally pulling away for a much needed breath. Justin raises his arms to let her pull his bunched shirt over his head, tossing it somewhere on the floor behind her. He watches her take her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes on him and a look on her face that's making his body temperature soar, a strong flush rising up her neck to her cheeks.

Justin's hands are settled on her hips. He rubs just a little, feeling the soft material and the warmth of her skin underneath. Alex likes that-he sees it in the way the corners of her lips turn up and he grins in response.

Alex's fingers are still tangled in his hair, he feels them threading, tugging just enough for him to notice, and she tilts his head back even further. Her lips fall on his again and the rustle of fabric against fabric tells him she's moving closer into him before he feels her mold her body into his, until she's flush against him and still pushing as he falls onto his back on the elaborate quilt.

And just as Alex has always taken the lead in about pretty much everything in their lives, she takes the lead here and Justin allows himself to be pressed him back into the pillows while she stretches her body out atop his.

Though he wouldn't consider himself a ladies man by any means, this isn't exactly unfamiliar territory for him. Yet it feels different somehow. More innocent maybe. Cautious. The way a first time is supposed to feel-even if its not _the_ first time.

Things begin to fuzzy and things get steamier, and his brain momentarily shuts down as his body takes over. Hands begin wandering, lips following in their wake, and it just all feels _good_.

Then Alex's hand finds its way to his belt buckle and the inner panic button in Justin's head goes off.

"Whoa." Startled eyes meet his when he takes hold of her wrist. She pushes herself up and away from him, giving him the much needed space to think with his big brain.

Pushing her hair away from her face, Alex takes a few deep breaths before speaking. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he tries to reassure her by rubbing his hands along her arms. "I just think we should slow down."

10 seconds ago, Justin would never think he could imagine Alex looking as lethal as she begins to look. The flush on her face deepens to an almost angry color and she jerks away from him roughly, jaw clenched as she slides off him and stands beside the bed.

"You know, Justin," she spits the word out like they taste bad. "You're the only guy I know who objects when the girl he's dating tries to get him naked."

Ouch. That stings more than he though words could.

Sliding over to the edge, he sits up and takes one of her hands tentatively in his. "I'm thinking of you here," he tells her.

She pulls her hand away, gentler than before and tucks the ends of her disheveled hair behind her back. "I'm thinking of both of us," she whispers, blush renewing itself in her cheeks.

His reaction isn't immediate because honestly, he's not sure he's really seeing what he is, but he finally snaps back to focus when Alex has the side zipper of her dress halfway down.

Justin jumps up, a 'stop' falling from his mouth before he can stop it.

Alex takes a step back, stunned at his outburst. She takes on a wounded expression that breaks Justin's heart into a million pieces and she blinks rapidly like she's trying to quell the flow of tears he can plainly see rising in her eyes. Without another word she stalks into the bathroom and slams the door.

Of course she locked it. Why he even bothered to try to turn the knob is beyond him, but Justin does before tapping his palm against the wood a few times. "Alex," he says, "I'm sorry. I…it didn't come out right."

"You're lucky I don't have my wand," she yells out and he breaths a sigh of relief. Its only when she's really, really hurt or angry that she gives him the silent treatment.

He fights the urge to laugh. "I know. You just…you caught me off guard. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

He hears her scoff. "You didn't," she says, with pretty much no conviction behind her words.

Laying his palm against the surface, Justin speaks softer, hoping she can hear him. "Its not that I don't want to, Alex. I just feel like we were kind of trying to prove a point there."

She doesn't say anything. His nerves start to tingle.

"We've been so careful about all of this, and it carried over I guess. We're in such unfamiliar territory here…I don't know, it felt like going from zero to sixty if that makes any sense."

The door opens. Justin steps back, moving out of her way so she can walk back into the bedroom.

"It does," Alex whispers and he's so relieved she's out that it doesn't compute for a second. Then she moves into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face into his chest. His own arms move to encircle her back on instinct. "I think I had a 'now or never' moment there," she mumbles into his skin. "I just wanted to let you know that I wanted to."

Justin is careful not to let her know how much her words affect him. Because they do. He is _so very affected_ but this is the right thing. If they ever go there, he wants it to be right, with no regrets tainting it.

He owes her that.

…0…

_Washington; 2018_

Blood rushing through his veins (yes, he can feel it) and airway constricting, Justin searches Alex's eyes, letting his lips hover where they are; inches from hers, exchanging heavy pants of breath.

"This is a bad idea…" Alex whispers and her eyes drop down to his lips, making him tingle like she's touching him. Her gaze is that heavy.

Justin licks his lips in hopes of curing his dry mouth. She's right, he knows she's right. But that tiny bit of logic doesn't do much to quell the onslaught of yearning attacking him. He feels his common sense being squashed down to a place in his head where it can be easily ignored, rapidly getting replaced by the same notions that started this entire situation. "I know."

They stay that way for several seconds, each simultaneously too absorbed to move away and too hesitant to close the scant distance between them.

"Can I ask you something?" Alex's voice is little more than air and he feels it ghost his skin. It takes every ounce of willpower Justin possesses to nod his head. "When you think about that summer, what do you remember?"

Loaded question, and he sifts through his brain for all the recollections (and there are many) of the events that unfolded during those weeks. There is much, more than he was conscious of when they were unfolding around him, and its hard to pick out any one specific moment in the collection. Each one is equally precious to him and he's carried them around in his heart for five and a half years, so guarded that talking about them, even with the only other person who shares them, is difficult.

"It's not…really just one moment in particular." Words are forming in his mouth and they feel foreign coming out. "It's more like…I felt good." Alex tilts her head to the side, perplexed. His fingers twitch while his clouded mind struggle to conjure the right descriptions. "Even though we were sneaking around and lying to everyone…it still felt… good. Being with you, it made me happy."

It feels like he's fallen short of the true nature of his emotional state back then, but its all he can come up with at the moment. "I'm not explaining it right." He turns his neck sideways and lets his head drop back to the couch.

He feels the couch shift and Alex scoots down. If he turned his head back to his previous position he would be looking her right in the eye again.

Letting his gaze flick over her face while she stares into the fireplace, he returns her question. "What do you remember?"

"I remember that night, that first night, when we fell asleep in the lair." There is hesitation in her words, no deep thought like he'd had. "I'm not sure when I started thinking of you in that way, but I was so sure that I was going to gross you out." She's still not looking at him, but the even tone of her voice tells him that his sister is trying desperately to keep herself, her emotions, in check as she speaks. "I walked by your room one morning and you were just sitting there, on your bed, tying your shoes, and it didn't feel like looking at my brother anymore. I was looking at this guy I'd known my whole life," Justin finally feels her facing him and he meets her eyes full on. "But it felt like seeing someone for the first time."

She pauses and takes a deep breath. "And it all sort of…snowballed? I guess is the word, from there."

"It was like that for me," he admits. "Once I realized that there was no going back, and I let myself see things for what they were, it just kept growing until…" His voice trails off. He squeezes his eyes shut, tight, and stars explode behind his eyelids.

A small chuckle emits from Alex's throat. "We really made a mess of things, didn't we?"

"I think that's pretty much a given," he mutters darkly.

She sits up, face impassive, and swings her legs down to the floor. Holding out a hand, she motions for him to take it. "Justin, come here."

Full of trepidation, Justin wraps his fingers around Alex's smaller ones and rises up off the floor to sit beside her on the couch.

With a deep breath, she starts talking, laying Justin's open hand palm up on her leg and tracing the lines with her fingertip. "Justin, you're my brother, and I love you, but I need to know if that's enough for you."

He'd been watching her finger skim its way along the contours of his hand, but now he looks into the face of a woman he barely knows, once a girl he knew better than he knew himself, and he knows, knows, _knows_ that this is his sister and he loves her in every way he's supposed to and in all the ways he's not and right now, there is definitely one side tipping the scales.

But he has to be the strong one here.

"It has to be."

She expels a deep breath, overlaid with a sob, and clutches at his hand, fingers gripping his vice tight.

Tears spill over Alex's cheek, streaking down her skin like water over terracotta porcelain. She looks at him, imploring, pleading with her eyes. "Does it?" she breaths and her voice is raspy, hoarse, and so unlike her. It breaks his heart all over again into a thousand pieces and he can't take it any more.

Snaking a hand into the tangle of curls at the back of her head, Justin tugs her forward into a heated kiss, full of want and need, tugging at her lower lip with his teeth before taking the briefest of seconds to shudder a pant of air against her cheek, then kiss her again with every intention of letting her know he's never wanted anything more.

Her hands go to his cheeks, cupping his face, and pulling him as close as she possibly can, opening her mouth under his with a tiny moan.

They end up tangled on the couch, Justin laying back against Alex's heap of throw pillows with her on top of him, hands everywhere from his hair to his chest and back again, mouth moving down his neck.

Greedy fingers roam over the skin of her upper back, bared between the thin straps of the top she'd worn to bed. Down, and back up under the cotton, splaying unrestricted across her shoulder blades.

Never would have Justin have guessed that he would dare to kiss Alex again. Never, when the memories of their initial outing and the aftermath still fresh in his brain, would he guess that she would allow him to; to kiss her, touch her, mold her against him and pour every single pent up emotion he'd been repressing out against her skin.

She moves over him, sitting up and dragging her hands heavily down his chest, feeling the ridges of his body in comparison to the body he'd had the last time they'd let themselves get this close. Gulping in air, Justin watches her, his eyes hot, as she takes stock of him when she pulls his shirt over his head and begins her inventory anew. Shifting over him, Alex leans down slow, hands moving to either side of his head, and her hair falls in a thick curtain around their faces. The bottom of her top has ridden up, and when the exposed strip of her stomach lays against his own abdomen, he sucks in a hard breath and turns them over so he's hovering over her.

Justin watches her eyes slip shut when he digs his fingers into the skin over her ribs, flexing his fingers until they touch where her hipbones jut out above the waistband of her pajama bottoms. Her back arches, and she opens her eyes to give him a lazy, languid look of contentment. If she were a cat, Justin thinks, this is the moment she would start purring. Feeling bold, he lowers himself down on his hands and places an open kiss on the fluttering pulse in her neck.

Alex's fingernails embed themselves into the back of his neck, and she loops a leg around his waist, hitching their hips together. His eyes threaten to roll back in his head. He groans, dropping his forehead to her collarbone. He runs his nose along the line of the bone, and the smell of her skin invades his senses.

God, she still smells of the same perfume and moisturizers and whatever else girls use that smell so delicious.

"Justin…"

He feels it; the vibration transferring from her skin to his and out of the corner of his eye he catches sight of that sketch; Alex's red dress, a reminder of what led them here now, and he's catapulted back in time, swimming in memories of salsa music, a wedding on the beach, shooting stars giving way to looks of horror on the faces of his family.

Is he really willing to break that trust? Again?

With extreme effort, Justin wrenches himself away from Alex and stands over her in front of the couch.

She gapes up at him, face flushed, clearly stunned when he pulls his shirt back over his head.

He fumbled for his shoes, jerking them on in a rush-not even sure he was putting them on the right feet. "I'm sorry, Alex. I just…"

Watching as her chin starts to quiver, Justin turns away, heading out the front door before he does more damage than he already has.

…0…


	8. Chapter 8

_New York; 2012_

Justin absolutely refuses to watch another horror movie and that's that.

Alex pouts, huffing a little and jutting her lips out, whining all through the video store. He tries to tune her out while he scours the racks for something for family movie night.

She finally gives up somewhere around the documentaries and pulls out the postcard she'd gotten that morning from Paige.

"Snail mail?" Max had asked, and plucked it out of his sister's hand over breakfast to look more closely at the Fiji coastline on the front.

Alex merely rolled her eyes. "She thinks it kitschy and retro."

When Justin becomes so absorbed in reading the description of a 12 hour series on the Nuremburg trials he walks straight into the adult section. He hears Alex call his name and he looks up, directly into the more fetish themed films and feels all the blood rushing to his face.

He remembers the previous weekend, at Paige's wedding, with Alex and blushes harder if that's even possible.

"Justin?"

Snapping to attention at the sound of Alex's voice, Justin whirls and winds up tangled in the thick red curtain that separates the room he's wandered into from the rest of the store with a yelp, falling against the wall.

She finds him there, a prisoner of dusty velvet the same shade of red as his face. With a purse of her lips, she tips her head towards a particularly graphic DVD cover and deadpans, "I don't think that's what Mom had in mind when she said 'something different' for movie night."

"You could help me here," Justin mutters, but manages to extract himself successfully only to fall against her.

Alex helps him regain his balance, rolling her eyes, and laughs when the store owner glowers at the two of them from behind his counter. Once his attention is back on whatever magazine their ruckus pulled him from, Alex lets herself laugh at the horrified look on her brother's face, so hard that she snorts and has to put her hands over her face to muffle the sound.

He glares at her, face slowly fading pink. He can't really be angry though. The situation is pretty ridiculous and if the roles were reversed, there's no way he wouldn't laugh at her. Finally, he lets out a small chuckle himself. Alex grins and a mischievous gleam that Justin knows all too well comes into her eyes.

She tosses a look back over her shoulder at the clerk before she places a hand on Justin's chest and pushes him behind the curtain again.

"Alex…" he says warningly, to which she merely grins in response and then her hands are in his hair and all the talk they had on the way home from the wedding about being more careful goes out the window and he really, really hopes the curtain is enough.

Things are just at that point where they both get reckless when Justin hears someone calling his name.

His head whips up and all the air in his lungs rush out when he recognizes Zeke Beakerman walking towards him, looking exactly the same as he did at graduation 3 years earlier.

He feels more than sees Alex spin around to see who it is and by now Zeke has gotten close enough to know what they were doing when he interrupted them and his eyes land on Alex before widening in horror. "Um, you know what, I'm late for…stuff, so I'll just-" He makes to leave the store but Justin grabs his arm, not really thinking about what he's going to say but he has that sickening churning in his stomach that tells him some serious damage control is needed here and it's up to him to do it. Alex doesn't look like she can move at the moment.

Justin shoves the Nuremburg documentary into Alex hand and pulls the curtain shut behind him and Zeke. Then he has his wand out and the incantation is leaving his lips before he can even begin to rationalize or lie his way out of the situation, the light and smoke erupting from the tip of his wand the only evidence that he and Alex, finally, have been stupid enough to get caught.

It's done. And Zeke is giving him that blank, cheery smile Justin used to associate with his former best friend, asking him about UVA and engineering and how his parents are and Justin feels a 10 ton weight settle directly in the pit of his stomach. He answers; the same bland, boring standard answers he would give a distant relative or the guy who sat behind him in chemistry who used to burn his pencils on the Bunsen burner.

They leave the back room, Zeke giving a surprised but not unhappy greeting to Alex and walks out, completely oblivious to what's just happened.

Watching him go, Justin feels Alex's hand on his arm. "Justin…"

He shrugs her off and yanks his wallet out of his back pocket. Shoving a few bills into her hand, he tells her to get whatever movies she wants. He leaves the store, not even bothering to look back at her, needing to clear his head and when he sees Jack across the street he doesn't even bother to pretend he's not ignoring him.

…0…

_Washington; 2018_

The smell of incense and melted candle wax flood Justin's nostrils as soon as he opens the door. It's a familiar smell, at one time a comforting smell, and the sound of the heavy oak door shutting behind him makes him jump. He takes it all in; the tapestries, the statues, the rows of tiny flames flickering at the far end of the alter in their red votives.

Part of Justin fears that the few people that are lingering inside despite the hour can see his sin on him, and he even he knows he moves with the caution of someone experiencing the trivial fear of catching on fire when his feet cross from the entryway to stand beside the back pew. He knows he won't actually catch on fire of course, he's not stupid, but he was raised a good Catholic boy by a very devout mother so its with extreme trepidation that he dips his finger into the silver holder by the wall and crosses himself before going further.

_Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, amen._

He sits about 4 rows back from the front, feeling the carved dark eyes of the statues on his back as he makes his way there, feeling far more conspicuous than he is. The thought of lighting a candle crosses his mind and is quickly dismissed. What can he pray for that he hasn't already and even if he thought of something, who up there would be wiling to listen to him after everything he's done?

Time ticks by and the heady musk of the incense is beginning to give him a headache, yet he can't seem to make himself leave. Deep in his heart, he still feels a type of sanctuary and safety in the quiet haven of a church, any church, and the thoughts ricocheting about in his head seem different with the filter of the ornate gilt and deep tradition that surrounds him from every angle. It all still feels the same; Alex's look of dejection, his own guilt, the memories of her soft skin, so warm under his finger and the scent of lavender wafting up from her hair. And being here, the place that hits home just how wrong what they're doing is, filters it-makes it all seem distant, more abstract. Like a movie he saw once and can't fully recall.

People come and go while he sits. Some light candles, some enter the confessional. Some cry. He watches them and wonders if whatever they've done could possibly be as bad as what he's close to doing.

Soft footfalls don't really register. He used to them he's been sitting here that long. The feeling of someone sitting in the pew behind him is new, but he thinks some teeny part of his heart was hoping she'd show up.

"How'd you find me?"

Alex's voice is soft, respectful. "This is the only Catholic church within walking distance of my place."

She leans forward as he turns himself cattycorner to face her, but can't bear to look up from his folded palms in his lap.

"You're pretty predictable, you know that?"

He hopes that's true. If it is, maybe his actions earlier weren't as much as a surprise; maybe they didn't hurt her as much as he fears.

"I'm sorry," he says, daring a glance up at her.

He regrets it at once. She's pale and her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy from crying.

"I know," she says and its true. She does know. Even if he weren't sure of that he can hear it in her voice; how tired she is, how used to this dance they do. "It's okay, Justin."

He shakes his head. "No, Alex, it's not okay. I shouldn't have-"

She cuts him off, shaking her head and muttering 'no' under her breath over and over, eyes squeezed shut. "Don't," she says, word barely audible, and opens her eyes on the tapestry on the far wall depicting the Resurrection. "You know, I haven't been in a Catholic church is almost 4 years."

"I go to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve," Justin states. "I used to go on Easter too…but it just started feeling weird; the priest talking about Lent and sacrifice…"

"And you started to think that if only they knew the kind of sacrifice you'd made." Alex props her chin on her hand, elbow on the back of the pew Justin sits in.

"Something like that," he agrees, thinking that she looks exactly the same as she used to when their mother made them go to St. Ignatius every week, and Alex would sit in Sunday School with the same far off expression on her face.

It really was amazing, how something that she never even seemed to take seriously could still affect her so.

His eyes are drawn once more to the confessional. No one has gone in for a while now and the priest steps out, offering Justin a kind smile when he notices him.

"Justin."

He turns his attention back to his sister, noting the worry lines crinkling her brow and around her mouth that he hadn't noticed before now. His fingers itch, wanting to trace them and he berates his uncooperative mind for the urges he can't seem to get rid of.

"We can't do this anymore," Alex tells him and he feels something deep in the dark recesses of his soul crack open and bleed. "We're hurting each other, and we're not kids anymore. We know better."

"You're right."

She gives him a crooked smile, more resigned and defeated than he can ever, ever, remember seeing his once wild and uncontrollable little sister.

He did this to her.

She takes hold of the edge of his pew, pulling herself forward a little bit so that she's barely sitting on the edge of her own. "Its just-when I saw you walk into my gallery with Max…you looked so sad, Justin. You looked tired. And you're only 27 years old."

Not like this is new information for Justin.

"And I imagine I must look about the same," she goes on. "So I think its better that we just…stop." Her hand finds his against the back of his seat and squeezes. "I don't want to live the rest of my life being as unhappy as I've been the last few years."

Is this really his sister-this rational, mature woman sitting with him, her fingers wrapped around his? Can it be Alex, so sure and right in what she's saying?

Justin sighs. "I don't either," he confesses. "And I want you to be happy, Alex. More than you know."

The edges of her mouth quirks up and her eyes begin to get watery. Not really able to tell the difference between happy tears and a sad smile at this point, Justin gives her hand another quick squeeze. "I'm tired of not liking myself, Alex. I want to enjoy my life and my work again. I haven't in so long."

"Me either." Alex blows out a long breath and her shoulders tilt up in lopsided shrug. "God, I used to love life."

"I remember." Justin chuckles as the image of a mischievous little girl with inky black pigtails comes to life before his inner eye. He remember her, he remembers the somewhat more serious girl with colored pencils in her hair and fabric swatches over her shoulder looking at him with something akin to adoration in her big dark eyes, and he remembers the shell of a person who sat across from him in a nice Washington restaurant with so much left unsaid between them. "History is who we are and why we are the way we are," he mutters.

"Deep," Alex muses.

He glances at her, brow furrowed. "It's a quote."

"Oh."

Justin laughs, a real laugh, like he hasn't in years. It feels good; laughing, knowing that, at heart, Alex is still Alex. She looks at him like he's grown a second head for a second, which only makes him laugh harder and then joins him, their chuckles echoing off the stone walls around them.

…0…

_New York; 2012_

Theresa asks him where Alex is as soon as he steps foot back in the shop, and he tosses off that he doesn't know, that he's sick, and that he doesn't want to be disturbed for the rest of the night as he heads upstairs. He's being rude, and disrespectful, but all he wants is time alone to think.

He shuts the door to his room without turning on the light and flops onto his bed. At once he's overwhelmed with pictures of Zeke's face; confused and horrified, bright and unassuming and Justin feels the world tilt under him. He sits up on the edge of his bed and puts his head between his knees, knowing that he's about to be sick and desperate to keep the contents of his stomach on the inside.

There was no other choice. That's what he keeps telling himself. Zeke would never have understood, no matter what Justin could have said. And there was no way he would have kept the information to himself.

This isn't just about protecting himself, all though that thought is definitely there. He was protecting his sister as well-just like he's always had to do.

The window beside Justin's bed is the only source he has for how long passes while he lays there. The sun gets extremely bright then dims and he hears the sounds of his family moving around downstairs fading into silence just as the pink and orange streaks of sunset on his bedroom door disappear.

Laying back down, stomach no longer reeling, Justin's attention falls on his bedside table, to an old picture of himself with Alex and Max the last summer he was home, before college. They're all smiling, standing out on the terrace with the New York skyline partly visible above their head, all smiling and looking like the pieces of a puzzle aligning just right, right next to each other and the resemblances stand out starkly. Max and Alex have the same smile, the same eyes, Justin and Max with the same chin and jaw line, he and Alex both inherited their mother's dark, dark hair.

Justin knows that he and Alex really don't look enough alike for any stranger off the street to automatically think they're brother and sister, but throw Max into the mix and it all falls into place.

His door creaks open and he knows its Alex without having to look.

"Justin? Mom said you're sick."

Instead of replying he rolls over onto his side and pulls his iPod from the top drawer of his nightstand.

And just as soon as he's switched it on Alex comes over and jerks it out of his hands, pulling the earbuds out, hard, and now he's pissed.

"Damn it, Alex. That hurt."

She glares at him, fury contorting her pretty face and making it hard, unfamiliar. He's never seen her so angry.

"Dad decided to do family night when you're feeling better," she says in a cold, detached voice. "He and Mom went out to dinner, Max went to a party."

"So you're gonna take the opportunity to yell at me?" Justin demands. He stands up. The past few years have given him several more inches in height, taller than his dad, taller than Kelbo even, and he towers over his sister now. But she doesn't look intimidated, not by a long shot. Justin could grow to 7 feet tall and Alex would still look scary to him at times like these, her eyes glittering and almost black.

"I'm sorry, okay?" Alex throws her arms out wide. He scoffs, used to seeing her get all dramatic. "I am," she insists, face reddening at his dismissal of her words. "I shouldn't have kissed you back there. It's all on me. But don't get all emo and whiney on me because you had to use a spell on Zeke." She shifts her weight onto her back foot, breath labored and points at him. "That is not my fault."

He can't believe what he's hearing. "Excuse me?"

Alex gets up in his face, not backing down one iota. "You made that decision, Justin, not me, and it sucks. I know that. But no one forced you to do it."

"You have no right to blame me," she says after a few seconds. Her voice cracks. Emotion, from screaming-he doesn't know. But he feels guilty and that just makes him even angrier.

The words are right there in the back of his brain, just like they've always been, full of resentment and accusation he hadn't even been aware he was still carrying around. "Nothing's ever your fault, is it Alex?"

Sucking in a deep breath between her teeth, Alex takes a step back.

She's looking at Justin like she doesn't even know who he is. Oddly enough, he feels vindicated because he hasn't known that himself for quite some time now.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"What does that mean?" he asks. "That means is that you can be so awful sometimes, Alex, so frustrating, and I can't even _stand_ you half the time." Her eyes are filling with tears but he can't stop now. This has all been a long time coming. "You're demanding as hell, and you always have to have your way-" He pauses. "Why. I just want to know why."

"Why what exactly?"

Justin groans dramatically and drops his head forward. "Why do we do this to each other? What do you want from me?"

When she doesn't answer Justin takes hold of her arms, bringing her flush against his chest. "What do you want from me?" he yells. Alex winces, her eyes wide and…scared.

Scared of him.

He comes to his sense and is deeply, deeply ashamed for the way he's just acted. For the way he's treated her. Releasing his hold on her, Justin stumbles backwards away from her, mouth gaping, mind blank.

"Alex…I'm sorry."

She presses her lips together until they disappear and she nods, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. "You really hate me that much?"

God. What has he done?

"I could never hate you, Alex." He tries to take hold of her hands, but she backs away from him. Justin stop with his hand in mid air feeling as if she's just slugged him. "Zeke was my best friend," he murmurs in a voice so low even he can barely hear it. "He was my best friend for 7 years and I used magic on him today." She doesn't appear so closed off anymore so he continues. "I've never done anything like that; used magic on someone close to me just to cover my own mistake."

He sees her flinch on the word mistake and this whole he's dug himself is getting deeper by the second.

"I don't know who I'm becoming, Alex, and it scares me."

Wordlessly, Alex walks to Justin and folds him into her arms. The tears start up and he grips at the back of her shirt while she threads her fingers through his hair, his head pressed into the side of her neck.

"You did it for me," she whispers into his ear. "You were protecting me, Justin. You shouldn't feel guilty because you and Zeke used to be joined at the un-hip."

He chuckles, smoothing his hands over her back, drops a kiss at the base of her throat.

His harsh words still linger in the air, hovering over their heads like persistent bees, determined to sting, but Alex's attempts to make him laugh well into the morning hours convince him she's no longer upset and everything settles back where it was.

Justin wakes up around dawn to find Alex curled against his back, her forehead pressed between his shoulder blades, fists twisted in the fabric of his shirt at the small of his back, knuckles occasionally brushing against his spine where the material has ridden up and knows that it will all work itself out in the end.

It has to.

…0…

_Washington; 2018_

Alex leaves the church before he does, giving him the same spare key he'd used earlier.

Justin sits a while longer, wondering at the absurdity of the situation. He stays long enough to attend the sunrise service and a new peace that he's been seeking washes over him, the calm mending his frayed nerves.

The coffee shop he stopped into the day before is already open. There's no sign of the younger girl, but the other one, Maggie, is there, with open surprise at seeing him again. It makes him wonder what she knows about Alex that he doesn't and he itches all along his skin.

He gets an extra large espresso for himself and a latte for Alex since he didn't see a coffee pot at her townhouse. Maggie's lips purse, but she says nothing past "Cream or sugar?" Justin doesn't know if Alex even still drinks coffee, or if she would want a regular cup as opposed to the sugary, whip-creamed concoction he's ordered for her, its something of a peace offering and leaves Maggie a big tip before he goes.

When he lets himself into Alex's, she's dashing around between her bathroom and bedroom, hair still hanging wet down her back.

She jumps when she notices him, and he grins, handing her the coffee to which she thanks him with a murderous gleam in her eyes that's all show.

His flight leaves at noon, and it's only now a little past seven, but he packs up anyway. (He never really unpacked so it's more refolding everything until Alex reemerges.)

"Do you need a ride to the airport?"

It takes him a couple seconds to say no, he'll call a cab, because he can't seem to stop looking at her.

Then he remembers that they made a choice the night before, and he needs to adhere to his promise.

Alex must notice, for she blushes and ducks her head, a few curly locks of hair falling into her face. All of a sudden he wants to tell her that he likes it, that long, curly hair suits her, but the inevitable awkwardness that would invariably ensue just isn't worth it for something so trivial.

(It isn't trivial though, and therein lays the real problem.)

She fidgets. Something she's done a lot since he showed back up in her life.

Again, Justin feels guilty. And again, he wonders if it will ever go away.

Now he watches her reach under the curtain of her hair to the back of her neck and unclasps the chain she's wearing. "Here." Taking hold of Justin's hand, she drops the St. Christopher medal into his palm. "He does protect travelers after all and it is yours so…"

Justin stopped thinking of this necklace as his the second he saw her tangle the chain around her fingers in her gallery, maybe even the first time she tugged on it to pull him down for a kiss.

Only he doesn't say that. Doesn't give it back to her. He puts it on, feeling in part that it'll help him keep a piece of Alex with him back in Chapel Hill. "I always wondered what happened to this."

"You left it in your room, back in New York," Alex tells him. "I found it a few days after..."

"Oh."

Silence falls and Alex laughs, trying to break it he assumes. "There's that elephant again."

"Yes, I think he's growing." Justin shrugs, stands up. "I think I'm gonna walk down to the bus stop, see a few sites before I go."

"The Library of Congress doesn't open to the public until 9." She grins at him, teasing, and he would never admit it, but Justin loves that she still knows him so well.

Shrugging, he hoists his bag up on shoulder, and moves toward her. "It was good to see you, Alex." Enveloping her into his chest, Justin rubs a hand up her back, hoping against hope that the only affection he's displaying here comes across as brotherly and nothing more.

Her head fits just perfectly under his chin, and her arms go around his waist easily. She squeezes him tight before stepping back. "Take care, Justin."

Justin stops in for breakfast at a little bistro on the national mall, conscious of begin hopelessly touristy with his duffel bag at his feet under the table. He looses himself in the paintings at the Smithsonian and browses in the gift shop, picking up a pretty little Mona Lisa inspired statue for Annaleigh.

Copies of the Tristan and Isolde soundtrack performed by the Washington National Opera sit on the checkout counter, next to piles of paperbacks of the same legend translated from the original German poem. The book cover is from the movie that came out years ago. He saw it-Alex was only 13 and their parents wouldn't let her go to the theater by herself so she forced him to take her.

"_Love is made by God. Ignore it and you will suffer as you cannot imagine."_

It hits him out of nowhere-he didn't know he even remembered that line. He barely recalls the movie, though he knows the story of course.

If that sentiment is true, then God must have one heck of a sense of humor.

…0…

A/N: I have no idea how long Justin and Zeke have been friends, so we'll call is creative license.

I also have no clue what time the Library of Congress opens to the public, but the Smithsonian opens at 9 so that's what I went with.

"Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, amen." Rosary 1

"History is who we are and why we are the way we are." -David McCullough

"Love is made by God. Ignore it and you will suffer as you cannot imagine." -Isolde (Sophia Myles), _Tristan & Isolde_.


	9. Chapter 9

This chapter was a bitch to write. Here's hoping it reads better.

…0…

_once I had it right, it was all too late, too late, too late, too little, too late_

_-Erik Hassle, Hurtful_

…0…

_New York; 2012_

Once the pieces finally come together, it feels like a story told backwards. The ending was already written and all they had left to do was work towards it.

One way or another, it was always already there, just waiting for them to find it.

Justin remembers his mother telling him, from the time he was able to understand the concept of right and wrong, to never lie, to never hide the facts. Because the truth will always out. It will always make itself known. Better to save yourself the mess.

But Justin grew up with Alex and all the many skewed notions of the world she made up as she went.

Alex thinks nothing of lying, of sneaking around, of deceiving people. Even those people she holds in the highest regard. If asked, she'll simply shrug and say that lying is necessary sometimes, in that tone of voice she reserves for those things that, in her mind, should be obvious.

When they were younger, Justin held out hope that some part of what made him the responsible person he was would rub off on his sister and every once in a while he would catch her eye or observe her from a distance and he'd think, just maybe, that it had.

But the day they both simultaneously reach for their wands to place the same memory spell Justin used on Zeke on their mother and her horrible, horrible timing, was when Justin came to the cold realization that Alex was the one who had rubbed off on him.

His fingers wrap around the thin, sturdy wood of his wand first and the tiny burst of light is out there, giving Theresa no time to react while Alex rolls away from him and hides quickly.

No more than two heartbeats pass.

"Justin, have you seen your sister? I've looked all over for her."

Turning his wand over in his fingers because it's a habit he's developed when there's no need for discretion (and a better reason for having it out than the real one) and rolling it between his palms, he forces all the emotion out of his voice before he answers. "Not since yesterday."

"Hmm." Theresa comes over and feels his forehead for errant signs of his mystery illness from the day before and then leaves, telling him that Max got offered some more hours at the garage and they need Alex to work the dinner shift and would he please tell her when he sees her.

Justin nods, cheery fake smile plastered on his face.

A soft rustle accompanies the fading footfalls down the stairs and he turns to see Alex emerging from the closet, a sad look on her face he can't quite decipher.

"I was going to do it," she states simply. Sitting back down on the edge of his bed, Alex tucks her legs up underneath her and takes one of Justin's hands in hers. "You didn't have to do it again."

She's thinking of Zeke and their resulting blowup later on. Justin thinks back on his hateful words and he hates himself for letting something affect him so when he knows, that it was the right thing to do. _He knows._

He shrugs and falls back on his bed, head towards the footboard, feet on his pillows. "I didn't even think about it," he tells her, and for a millisecond he could be talking about either situation. "I just…reacted."

Alex stretches her body out along the side of his. Pressing her nose against that hollow spot between his jaw and ear-the one that drives him _insane, oh my God_-she lays a hand on his chest, fingertips brushing the skin along the edge of his t shirt. "That's called impulse, Justin. I know it's not a concept you're really familiar with, but some people are what they call spontaneous and-"

"Ha, ha," he says dryly, earning a cheeky smile from her, tongue poking between her teeth. "If you're finished mocking me-"

Alex shakes her head. "Oh, never."

He groans, dramatically, playfully, and throws his hand over his eyes. Justin appreciates Alex's attempts to make him feel better, less responsible, more than he can ever put into words.

Never having been one to shy away from expressing of emotion, Justin noticed that as Alex got older, she got more private; keeping things easily compartmentalized in her life so that few ever actually knew what was going on in her head.

He used to be thankful for that.

Now though, now Justin wants to know what Alex is thinking. He wants to ask her, to talk to her, and just be able to sit and have a conversation without the jokes and teasing or the yelling of accusations. There's never really been a middle ground for them. In such different ways, they are both extreme people. They run at things full tilt and they don't back down.

But they do band together and they have always been able to latch on to the other in the most desperate of times.

There must, Justin thinks, be some type of happy medium somewhere between disaster and avoidance.

…0…

They spend the night before the battle on top of the bridge again, quiet, but edgy all the same and neither one of them dares to speak about what's really on their minds.

So they distract themselves.

Afraid to admit that he's scared out of his mind, Justin lets Alex roll him over on top of the mound of pillows and blankets they've got spread out.

Even though its summer and just walking down the street is enough to make anyone break a sweat, being on top of the bridge is cool bordering on cold, especially when the wind kicks in. As soon as Alex has his shirt off he hisses at the icy feeling across his heated skin and she laughs. "Sorry."

"No, its okay. Just…cold."

His hands come to settle on the curve of her hips and she smiles down at him, almost shy, and leans in, closer, closer.

And this time, when her palm drifts lower, he doesn't stop her.

…0…

The competition is set to begin at sundown and the entire apartment is filled with tension. Theresa cleans everything, Jerry spends the day reminding them of spells and potions and whatever else he thinks they might get tested on. The shop is closed, the sign on the front door saying they'll be open again the next day.

Max is listening to his iPod out on the balcony, trying to tune out the world and pouting a little as well Justin suspects. He had wanted to go into the garage for the day but their father wouldn't hear of it. He wants them all there for a reason they're not entirely sure of. Alex joked that he was going to make them scrimmage beforehand and started to explain to Justin that it was a sports term and what it meant before he threw a throw pillow at her.

The two of them are getting some strange looks from their dad, as hard as they try to act normal. But there's a marathon of some fashion reality show on and Alex has the remote hidden somewhere to prevent the channel being changed so that's what they watch. Alex is stretched out on the couch, her feet in Justin's lap and a bowl of popcorn balancing on her knees. He snags handfuls with one hand while he holds his spell book in the other.

It's not so much the couple-like pose that gets the strange looks. It's the fact that they're not arguing, that Justin's not complaining about being used as a footstool, that Alex isn't dumping the kernels all over his lap.

"Alex, are you sure you're prepared?" Jerry asks, a worried look on his face.

She nods, eyes still glued to the television. "Totally."

The corners of Justin's lips twitch. He turns the page in his book, trying not to let on that he found his sister's indifference to the situation sort of endearing and not exasperating as he would have in the past.

His dad casts Justin a pained expression, silently pleading with him. He closes his book and puts the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. "Come on, Alex. Let's go down to the lair and work on potions."

"What?" She props herself up on her elbows and stares at him. "They're about to announce who's going to Paris."

Rolling his eyes, Justin takes her wrist and pulls her up of the couch on the way down the stairs.

"Justin…" she whines.

Once they're down in the shop (out of range of being overheard) he pulls her against his chest. "Dad was about to go nuts up there that you weren't studying."

She snorts and untangles herself from him. "What about Max?"

Justin opens the door to the lair and steps aside so she can go in first. "Dad's been working with Max nonstop for weeks. He's prepared as far as Dad is concerned. You and I are the ones that haven't had lessons with him in a while."

"I think we're prepared enough." She flops onto the bench, observing as he quietly gathers ingredients and a small cauldron, lights a fire under it, with such focus. "Are we really going to make potions? Justin, even if we do lose our powers that's one thing we're always going to be able to do."

"Exactly." He grins at her, so big his gums show and she shakes her head at the brilliant simplicity of his idea.

She joins him at the table, sitting on the stool beside his and wraps her ankle over his while he adds herbs and water to his makeshift concoction. When she props her chin in her hand and watches him, a fond expression in her eyes, he begins to squirm, and meets her eyes. "What?"

Alex shrugs, a big smile breaking across her face. "Nothing."

He knows better than that. "Alex…"

To Justin's surprise, two twin spots of pink pop up on Alex's cheeks and she ducks her head. A warm, fizzy feeling begins deep inside Justin's body and seeps outward until even his fingers and toes tingle with the emotion and it starts to build upon itself, feeling it burst when he wraps a hand around the back of Alex's neck and pushes his lips onto hers, hard.

She's not surprised and responds eagerly, fingers twisting into the fabric on his shoulders.

He feels the outline of her smile against his mouth, and he pulls her closer so that their knees knock together and he can slip his palm down the bend of her spine to the sliver of warm skin where her shirt's ridden up.

Then her fingers find the top button on his shirt and works it through the opening, moving downwards and his lips fall down to her neck, moving over the soft skin and he hears warning bells in the back of his mind that he's heard before but refused to listen to…

"Hey guys, you still in here?"

They spring apart and before Justin can even react Alex trains her wand on Max and the sparks shoot out and hit him directly in the chest.

He stops, body going rigid for several seconds before he shakes his head. Then his eyes refocus and he gives his siblings the exact same smile he has since he was born. "You guys still working on potions?"

Justin feels Alex deflate beside him, the tension leaving her body. "Yeah." She pulls away from Justin and he is relieved, he honestly is, but he wants to comfort her because he knows how it feels to do what she's just done for someone else and it's a big burden to take on.

His sister isn't that girl who did whatever it took to duck responsibility, who refused to grow up.

"This is most disappointing."

A cold chill creeps over Justin's body as he looks around for the source of the voice.

He knows that voice.

As if appearing from a dream, Professor Crumbs shifts into sight in front of them, hands clasped in front of them, the very picture of judgment.

"What-what's going on?" Max looks back and forth between Justin and Alex and Crumbs with his brow scrunched in confusion. "I thought we were starting at sundown."

The lair door opens again and Jerry and Theresa walk in, Kelbo trailing behind them.

Justin feels like a vice grip is tightening around his chest and the blank yet eerily knowing look on his uncle's face. He couldn't possibly know…

But why is he here? Last they'd heard, he was in the Ukraine somewhere.

"Justin," his father says slowly, "why did your uncle ask your mother and me to come down here?" He notices Crumbs for the first time. "And why is professor Crumbs here so early?"

"Umm…" His mind spins and he looks at Alex, still sitting, frozen, in the same spot.

Crumbs walks forward a few paces and points his wand back at the spot he was standing in. "I think I have someone who can answer that question." With a flick of his wrist, he directs his wand in a downward motion until Jack's form comes into full view.

"Jack?" Theresa's hand goes to her chest in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

Crumbs motions for Kelbo, who asks Jerry and Theresa to sit down.

"Jack," Crumbs begins. "Is a wizard. That's what drew him to working here in the first place. Magic recognizes magic, even when it's hidden." Jerry nods. "I've known Jack's family for quite a few years now, so when he came to me with this problem, I knew he was telling me the truth."

Justin begins to feel sick, but struggles to keep himself from showing the signs of utter terror he feels.

"I don't understand what's going on here." Jerry stands and looks between his children and his brother. "Kelbo, why are you here?"

"As the eldest magical Russo family member," Crumbs answers in Kelbo's stead, "we had to take the problem to him. He has decided what must be done."

"Dad?" Max comes to stand by his father's side. "What are they talking about?"

"I'm not sure…" His turns, fixing a look on his two oldest children who have been strangely silent and sees that both of them are white as death. Alex has her eyes squeezed shut, turned cattycorner like she's trying to hide behind her brother without actually getting behind his body, who is stock still, looking at the floor. "Justin? Alex?"

They say nothing, so he turns back to his own brother. "Kelbo?"

Clearing his throat, Kelbo walks forward and places a hand on Jerry's shoulder. "Jack, as you know, happens to be very fond of Alex." He, and Theresa and Max, nod in confirmation. "And you know, he likes to hang out place he knows she's going to be." Again, they bob their heads. "Well…he saw something he thought Crumbs should know about."

Blindly, Justin's hand finds Alex's and grips tightly.

"Justin," Crumbs begins. "did you, or did you not, use magic on a mortal, in public, risking exposure as a wizard?"

Six sets of eyes, everyone but Alex, fly at him and he feels paralyzed by the heat and weight of accusing, bewildered stares. "I…"

"It wasn't his fault."

Alex has finally reacted; jumping to her feet beside her brother, cheeks red and eyes bright.

"Alex-"

She whirls on him when he tries to silence her. "No, Justin-" Turning back to the group, she goes on. "It was me; I did something I shouldn't and he was just covering for me. And he was behind a curtain." She added the last part quickly, sounding less sincere than Justin knew she was being. In spite of everything else going on, he was touched that she was trying to take the blame off him.

"No one saw him." Her voice falls to a near whisper. "Honest."

"Apparently Jack saw him," Theresa chimes in, "or this wouldn't be happening."

"Well maybe Jack should take a hint stop following me around everywhere I go," Alex seethes.

Justin watches the younger boy shrink back, refusing to meet anyone's gaze. Then he does; he meets Justin's eyes and there is a silent moment in which Justin realizes that, not only did Jack see him cast the spell on Zeke, he also saw why.

This is not good.

Theresa comes over to stand beside her daughter, putting her arm around Alex's shoulders to calm her.

"So what now?" Jerry faces Crumbs, clearly not comfortable with the look on his former teacher's face. "Does Justin have to fulfill some sort of punishment before the competition?"

A look passes between Kelbo and Crumbs. The older man nods, and takes a deep breath. "There isn't going to be a competition, Jerry."

"What?"

They all voice the question, all five of them that have no idea what that means or what could have lead to it.

"Jack," Crumbs says, "thank you for being here. You can go now."

He begins to walk out of the lair, taking a moment to pause and look over his shoulder at the Russo's. "I'm sorry."

"Alex?"

Arms around herself, Alex raises her eyes up to Crumbs.

Justin has never seen his sister look as young, as unsure, as she does right now and he wants nothing more than to make all of this go away for her. But he can't.

"Did you see your brother use magic on a mortal?"

She glances at Justin, checking. He nods, so she answers. "Yes."

Theresa sucks in a breath.

"Did you witness this magic in a public place?"

"Yes, but-"

"Yes or no, Alex," he instructs her. "What spell was it?"

"The memory spell," she whispers.

"Why?"

Justin feels all the color drain from his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Alex paling equally.

"Alex?" Kelbo coaxes. "I know it's hard, sweetie. But you have to answer the question." Beside her, Theresa rubs her hand up and down her daughter's arm.

Justin begs Crumbs to let him answer the questions, to leave Alex out of it. "It was me, not her."

"We need all the facts, Justin." Crumbs's hand pats his shoulder in an attempt at comfort and Justin realizes with sick certainty that they know the whole story; Crumbs and Kelbo, they knew exactly what Jack saw before they came here.

Max has been quiet through the ordeal and now he beaks his silence, walking over to his older brother whom he has teased and pranked on more than one occasion, but whom he has always, always respected, always trusted. "Justin, what'd you do?"

"I used a spell on Zeke," Justin announces. "I did it. Alex had nothing to do with any of it. Please." He's tempted to get down on his knees and beg. He would in a heartbeat if he thought it would help. "Dad, please."

Jerry wraps an arm around Alex's other shoulder. "Justin has admitted what he did. Can't we just leave Alex out of this?"

"We could," Crumbs says, "if it weren't for the fact that I witnessed Alex use the same spell myself not even a moment before you entered this room."

Oh God.

He knows what is about to happen here. He knows, can almost see it unfolding in his head, premonition like.

And he is powerless to stop it.

"Alex?" Theresa is concerned, pushing Alex's hair back from her face. "Honey, who did you use the spell on?"

As if in slow motion, Justin watches his sister's eyes raise and land on Max, who takes a step back in surprise, hurt in his eyes. "You used a spell on me?"

"They were down here practicing," Jerry's laugh is meant to sound easy, relieved, but comes out forced and fake and all Justin wants to do is sit down and cry. "It was just an accident." He glances at each of his children in turn. "Right?"

"I'm going to ask one last time," Crumbs states, voice more controlled, more authoritative than Justin has ever heard him. "Alex, why did your brother use a memory spell on the young man you've identified as Zeke?"

Tears begin to slip down Alex's cheeks, her shoulders shaking. She shakes her head and wipes at her face, but says nothing.

And Justin knows why. She's trying to protect him.

He breaks in between his parents and puts his hands on Alex's shoulders. "Alex," he chokes and his throat burns with the words, making them come out raspy. "You don't have to do this, okay? You don't have to say anything else. I'll take care of everything. I promise."

"No," she whispers, and tears fall from her chin onto the skin of his forearm.

"Alex-"

He can only imagine what is going through his parent's heads, through his brother's head, but he can't dwell on that now. He can't spare the time to think about why they're not saying anything, why they're not demanding to know what the two of them aren't saying. Alex never breaks down like this, and it must scare them as much as it does him.

"Justin used the spell on Zeke because Zeke saw me kiss him."

…0…

It all comes out.

He stands and watches the horror cross the faces of his parents, his brother, his uncle, as he and Alex tell them the truth.

They've crossed the line, they've used magic on friends and family whenever they were caught. They have lied to everyone they know.

"No." Theresa stands up, shaking her head. "I don't believe it." Her big dark eyes roam over the face of her children, refusing to believe what they have done, searching for some clue in their expressions to know that it's not true. "They wouldn't."

Kelbo asks for Undo Dust, and he pours it over the head of his sister-in-law after Max hands it to him.

Justin can't look at his mother as the dust works on her and the memory of what she saw comes back to her.

"Oh my God."

He hears the pain in her voice, the disgust. And she begins to cry.

"Max." Kelbo motions for him and then sprinkles the blue glitter on him as well.

When Max doesn't say anything, Justin looks up at his brother and is greeted by a look so angry, so betrayed, that he shudders with the feeling of shame that smacks into him.

"Justin, Alex," Crumbs stands in front of them and extends his hand, "your wands."

"What?" Alex's head shoots up from where she's been caught up in fiddling with her bracelets. "But-"

"Alex." Kelbo intones. "You can't refuse."

Anger coming off her in waves, she pulls her wand out of her back pocket and places it in the hand of Professor Crumbs, taking her fingers away slowly as if she couldn't bear to part with it.

"Justin."

He takes his wand and places it beside his sister's and it feels like a he's just given up a piece of his soul.

"We debated long and hard about what to do," Kelbo tells them all and hands a still sniffling Theresa his handkerchief. "But Justin and Alex, they knew better and while this isn't the worst thing they've ever done," he looks pointedly at his niece, "it's the motives behind it that made our decision, and the fact that it was their own family the two of them have deliberately hurt the most."

"But it wasn't deliberate," Justin interjects.

Crumbs raises his eyebrows. "Oh? Then you weren't under your own cognizance when you used magic on your mother to make her forget witnessing you do something you knew you shouldn't be doing?"

Justin drops his head and says nothing.

"Are they going to be punished?" Jerry speaks up, words clipped. Justin can't imagine how angry his father must be.

"Yes," Crumbs replied. "For the multiple negligent misuses of magic, the potential exposure, and for the complete disregard of the Wizard Code of Conduct in practicing deceptive magics on your own family, Justin and Alex Russo, you are hereby stripped of your powers forever. They shall never be returned to you for clearly, your judgment is not to be trusted."

Justin feels the very second his powers are pulled from his body. There is a dull, hot burning in the center of his chest, replaced by a sharp sting and then a feeling of emptiness.

He's…empty. That's the only word that keeps rolling around in Justin's head. Empty. _Empty._ Gone. His powers are no longer thrumming through his body with a steady pulse of ancient magic that went back to the beginning of his family. They sit, glowing in the palm of a small, elfin man that Justin used to view as a kindly, grandfather type figure.

And now he doesn't even feel like he's the same person anymore.

Proceeding to strip Alex's powers as well, Crumbs walks forward and instructs Max to extend his palms. He does, placing them directly over the older man's, and his entire body alights as the magic from his brother and sister course through him and he stumbles back, holding his stomach. "Whoa."

"You okay?" Jerry asks.

Max nods and he glances at his siblings, his face unreadable.

Crumbs pats Max on the back and then reaches to take hold of Theresa's hand. "I'm sorry about this."

She says nothing, but Jerry shakes his hand and tells him that he's the one who's sorry, making Justin color in humiliation.

Crumbs leaves, followed by Kelbo who offers to stay and help, but Jerry assures him that he and his wife can handle it.

Justin takes a tentative step, towards his parents, because he thinks standing so close to Alex is not going to help the situation right now even though he'd like nothing more in the universe than to wrap his arms around her and let her cry out the anger and pain he knows she must be feeling, so like his.

"Mom, Dad-"

Theresa cuts him off by holding up her hand. "How could the two of you do something like this? You know better."

He fights the urge to glance over his shoulder at his sister. "Mom, we're sorry."

"Sorry?" Her words do nothing to mask her outrage. "You're sorry? Justin-" she breaks off, and inhales sharply. It's a gesture he recognizes. She's trying to control her anger, trying not to fall on the instincts of saying something she shouldn't. He does the same thing. "There are some things you just don't do. This is one of them."

Justin knows this. Alex knows this. They just…couldn't stop.

"Alex." Jerry doesn't sound as angry as his wife. Maybe some part of him didn't want to believe it; what they've done. He hadn't been witness to the two of them together the way his wife and youngest son were.

She doesn't say anything. Tears begin falling down her face again and Justin moves towards her. It's not a conscious decision. Its instinctual, not something he can control.

"Don't!" Jerry booms and Justin reels as if his father has, not yelled at him, but instead hit him.

Taking a shuddering gasp, Alex turns and flees out of the lair, Theresa chasing after her, and the sound of the restaurant door slamming echoes in the large room.

…0…

Theresa doesn't find Alex. She comes back into the lair alone, saying that Alex ran off into the crowd and she doesn't know which way she went.

Justin gets accusing looks in his direction and he knows that, yes, he deserves them.

That doesn't make handling them any better though and he decides that he just can't right now, so he heads upstairs and locks himself in his room, packing away all the magical paraphernalia he has littered about and shoves the box into the back of his closet.

It's not even dinner time yet, so he knows he's in for another long day of self-imposed solitude. This time though, he knows that no one is going to come in and check on him. He's too far beyond positive that this time 'sick' is a term they have no trouble believing if the looks on their faces mean anything.

God, those looks…they keep replaying in Justin's head like a film on loop that just won't quit, won't even pause.

If he were to walk downstairs right now, Justin is pretty sure he'd find his mother praying quietly. She takes matters of faith very seriously, and the thoughts of her eldest son and daughter entwined must be the absolute worst breach of the morals she's instilled in them their whole lives.

For that, he feels the guiltiest. For going against everything he has been taught by his parents and his church since birth.

He knew better. God help him, he knew better.

Closing his eyes, Justin lays back on his bed and tries to conjure up an image of his sister that doesn't make him want to bash his head against his wall; walking her to school in third grade and tugging on her high ponytail when it bounced, of letting her stand on his back so she would be tall enough to sneak cookies out of the tall cupboard over the refrigerator, anything.

Only…he can't. He has a lifetime of simple, innocent memories of their childhood to draw upon and none of them are working. The past few weeks of heated moments have overridden them to the point where he can't separate Alex, his sister, from Alex, the girl haunting his every waking moment.

The two of them have never discussed what they were going to do after. The thoughts of the battle had been ignored purposely. He let the planning of a future after the summer was over stay off in that future, refusing to wonder what they were going to do when he was back in Virginia and she was still here in New York.

What could they do? Long distance dating? Furtive emails and phone calls?

He knows what he has to do. There really is only one option.

But that doesn't make it any easier.

…0…

Justin walks slowly down the stairs of his childhood home, feet heavy as lead. His parents are sitting at the dining room table. They look up at him when he stops in front of them, but say nothing, not even about the luggage he has with him.

They had to have known something like this would happen. They'll never be comfortable seeing him around Alex after yesterday, and he doesn't blame them for it. He's also tired of the worrying about the pain he's going to cause them, the pain he's already caused them, with his selfishness.

Without another word, he leaves the house key he's had since he was eight years old on the shelf and walks out the front door.

"Justin!"

He stops, hands gripping the handles of his bags.

Max comes up in front of him, still in his pajamas. "Weren't you even gonna say goodbye?"

"Its better this way, Max."

"Better?" He spit's the word out like it's bitter, or hot, like it burns his mouth. "For who?"

Justin sighs heavily, weary of it all. "Max…"

"No!" his younger brother explodes. "That's crap, Justin, and you know it. You're just…" He throws a hand up, making a disgusted face. "You're a coward."

Sucking in a sharp breath, Justin walks past him. He knows it's the truth, but hearing it from the mouth of his little brother doesn't make hearing it any easier.

"What about Alex?" Max calls after him.

Justin stops and turns back to his brother, not saying anything.

"How is she going to feel when she comes home and you're gone?" Max demands. "You don't think its going to hurt her that you didn't even bother to say goodbye to her?"

"She'll understand," Justin assures him.

Max walks towards his older brother, where he stands on the steps leading up and out of Waverly Place. With no warning, Max rears back and Justin feels an eruption of pain as Max's fist connects with his jaw.

Shaking his head, and his fist, Max turns his back on Justin and walks back into the Sub Station.

Fighting back tears that have nothing to do with the ache in the lower part of his face, Justin glances around the street he grew up on before making his way to the subway, and eventually the airport, rosary clasped in his palm, praying that someday, someday, his family will forgive him.

…0…


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: If you're thinking you've already seen this chapter, you have, but I'm an airhead and left out a pretty important part so I had to fix that. Sorry.

…0…

_New York; 2018_

_four months later…_

It's with his heart in his throat that Justin walks off the plane into the throng of people at JFK Airport. He takes a deep breath, willing his nerves to settle. They feel like they're doing the samba underneath his skin and if there's any chance whatsoever of having as close to normal a reunion with his family as possible, he just needs to calm down.

And then he sees them; his parents.

The pulse in Justin's neck twitches, he feels the ticking muscles and his heart is hammering against his ribs.

It's a shock to see how much his parents have aged in the last 6 years. His father's hair is almost entirely gray now, or maybe it just looks that way from a distance since it was so light to begin with, and he's gained more than a few pounds but he still has the friendly, open face and kind eyes Justin's always associated with his dad.

His mother though is the one who looks the most different. Her hair is dark again, with no signs of gray or white to be seen, and it makes the deep lines around her eyes and mouth stand out starkly on her tan skin. She looks much, much older than she is and no longer does she seem like a warm, welcoming presence as she stands stoically with her hand on Max's shoulder. His mother is a detached, reserved person now.

Did he do this?

Justin has no time to really think about that now, for Max breaks away from the group and pulls him into a hug. When he pulls back, Justin sees Annaleigh behind him and she follows suit. He gives her the little Mona Lisa from DC and her whole face lights up before she hugs him again.

"Well, let's get home," Max says loudly, brightly. Forcibly. "I bet Alex is already back at the sub station."

"You guys didn't pick her up?" Justin asks.

Annaleigh shrugs, tucking her long curls behind her ears. "She drove up. And I can't wait to meet her, I feel like I'm never going to get to." Nudging Max in the side, she grins at Justin. "I offered to stay back and wait for her, but Max insisted I come."

"Well, I'm glad you did." He gives her a genuine smile, and tries to keep the relief out of his voice. No doubt Max wanted her there to keep their parents on good behavior.

He can't even imagine how Max talked them into coming down here to meet him.

When they reach Jerry and Theresa, on the outskirts of a large group of people, his steps begin to lag. As much as he's missed his parents, Justin dreads the inevitable awkwardness awaiting him.

Max, who is trying so hard to make this alright for him, throws an arm around his shoulder, and the other around Annaleigh. They must look like a normal, perfectly happy family.

If ever there was a prime example of 'looks can be deceiving,' this would be it.

Justin sees that behind her stoic front, his mother is tearing up when they finally reach her and he says hello quietly, fighting back tears of his own when she wraps her arms around him in a tentative, gentle hug.

"Oh honey," she whispers, "I missed you so much."

He's too choked up to say anything back, so he nods as best he can before pulling away.

His father though, he's the one who stays still and reserved, and shakes his son's hand and pats him on the shoulder, averting his eyes.

Not what he was expecting.

They make small talk on the way out of the airport, mostly about the wedding and they head down to the subway station. The city was more congested than usual for summer and Theresa insisted a cab would take too long. Justin's stomach lurches more than the train as they make their way through the midtown tunnel and downtown.

It's weird.

Justin hasn't set foot in New York since he was 21 years old and being surrounded by as familiar a situation as riding the subway feels as typical as it ever did, but the lapse in time has also made it feel like a new experience.

Just like standing between his younger brother and his parents.

Max asks him if he wants to come check out his garage before they head to the rehearsal dinner. He's expanded into building custom cars and even his eyes seem anxious to get Justin's opinion.

"Sure," he says, pushing open the door to the sub station.

Stopping in his tracks, Justin feels a sense of déjà vu unlike any he's ever felt before letting his eyes rest on his sister sitting at the front counter devouring a huge piece of chocolate cake.

His heart thuds painfully, and drops into his stomach.

Alex looks up, sheepish, and talks around a mouthful of frosting. "Hey guys."

Max and Justin both laugh and they reach her first, hugging her in turn. Justin pretends he doesn't feel the tension in the room skyrocket when he pulls away from her and they look over at their parents.

Theresa hugs Alex tightly, and sniffles against her daughter's hair and again, Justin feels himself getting a little teary himself, and even more so when Jerry hugs her and pulls away wiping at his eyes.

"Alright, enough of this mushy stuff," Max says. He puts an arm around Alex and directs her over to Annaleigh, who is oddly shy at the prospect of finally meeting Alex. "Alex, this is Annaleigh."

Annaleigh smiles at Alex, and only someone totally heartless wouldn't melt at the sight. She looks so hopeful and it makes Alex grin.

"Max," she tells him, "she is way out of your league."

Everyone chuckles at that and when Annaleigh hugs her Alex doesn't look the least bit uncomfortable.

"Who wants cake?" Theresa asks and they all settle around the counter. It feel to him like this is all for Annaleigh's benefit, but Justin isn't going to complain. Not when it finally feels like he has his family back.

The rehearsal dinner is set to begin at 7, uptown at the Regency, and he walks over to Max's garage after they finish their cake while Theresa insists Alex try on her bridesmaid's dress just to make sure it fits.

"This is really something, Max," Justin tells him, grinning, and throws an arm around his little brother's shoulder. "It's great."

As they walk back, Justin looks around and sees that little has changed around their old neighborhood. Some businesses have been renamed or replaced, there's a new park around the corner where a diner used to be.

But time passes and these things do not affect him like they should.

They get back home just in time to have their mother yell at them to go upstairs and get dressed.

Everything goes smoothly. Annaleigh's older brother, Ben, takes a shine to Alex and spends most of the evening attempting to flirt with her. Even when she tries to get away, he finds a way to keep her in his sights.

Theresa seems to find this amusing. Justin sits beside his mother, hoping she won't say anything about the three scotches he's already has as he watches his sister toss 'help me' looks at him over Ben's shoulder. But Jerry's standing near Alex and if something out of the way were to actually happen, he could handle it.

That doesn't stop him from feeling guilty though.

It's coded into Justin's DNA to protect his sister; to fight for her, beside her, even against her if it's for her own good. So just sitting and watching her put up with someone she obviously didn't want to be talking to isn't easy for him to deal with. Yes, there was a time when he would have sat back and enjoyed the spectacle. Alex has always been able to handle herself. But they're adults now, and she knows she has to be civil at least to Ben for Max's sake.

And there's the fact that he never has been able to refuse her help when she asks.

So he takes another sip of his drink and waits silently for the weekend to be over.

…0…

Professor Crumbs is waiting for them in the lair when they get home, Kelbo in tow.

This is the first time Justin has seen his uncle since everything blew apart and he doesn't quite now how to act around him. Max and his parents, they're immediate family; they'll forgive him and Alex for pretty much whatever they do and they know each other the best. He's not quite sure if that extends to extended family.

"Well," Crumbs says in the same oddly deep voice Justin still hears in his dreams, "Justin, Alex, you're both looking well."

He mutters a thank you. Alex is suspiciously quiet.

Kelbo walks to Max, asks him if he's ready, and when Max nods his head he takes his nephew's wand from him and hand it over to the older wizard and nods.

He turns to his niece and other nephew, face drawn of all the good humor Justin used to associate with his dad's rambunctious younger brother. "Have the two of you decided?"

Justin wants to slap himself. He and Alex knew this was coming. Hell, it was the catalyst for their reunion back in Washington, yet of all the old wounds they touched on those few days, this was the only one they never broached.

Foolish, he chides himself.

"Umm…" he begins, embarrassed to admit that they spent close to 48 hours together and never once talked about it only to have Alex take a step forward and cut him off.

"Justin's taking his powers back."

This is news to him. And to everyone else apparently. He feels the heat of their eyes on him, the situation so eerily familiar.

"No, Alex," he puts a hand on her arm and she angles her body to look up at him. "I'm the reason you lost your powers in the first place. You should take them back."

She shakes her head, dark hair flying about her face. "I don't want them," she says, soft, and for a second its like the world has upended itself and he's come out of Alice's rabbit hole. What else could explain Alex, who loved her powers and the freedom and fun they allowed her to stand in front of him now saying she doesn't want to have that back?

"But-"

Again, she interrupts him. "Professor Crumbs took my powers away from me once before, remember? And you sticking up for me was the only reason I kept them as long as I did."

Oh yes, he remembers that.

"If you hadn't," she continues with a glance over at Crumbs, "what happened later may not have ever happened. You lost your powers because of me." She speaks with such passion, such conviction, that even if he didn't know her, he'd know she believes in what she's saying. "I think we all know that I can't be trusted with my powers. I don't think things through, I never have. And if I were to take my powers back, I wouldn't have you there to fix my messes for me."

Justin hears his mother sniffle from her place beside him and he can understand it. He's choked up himself; too much so to speak, even when she squeezes his hand and faces forward again to tell Crumbs, Kelbo, Max, whoever, that she's sure.

Crumbs motions for him to come forward and he watches Max's powers get extracted from his brother's body, feels the tug just as sharply as when his own were stripped away. And when he's instructed to hold his hand out over the older man's wrinkled palm, he does so hesitantly, not sure what to expect.

Blinding heat scorches through Justin's palm, spreading quickly up his arm and throughout his body, zig-zagging around before coming to rest heavily in the pit of his stomach.

He lurches back, dizzy. Everything is too loud, too bright, too much. His vision of the world blurs, and all he can see is colors. Bright colors, red and greens and blues, indistinct and swirled together.

It's like the worst hangover ever and he sits on the living room floor, head between his knees, trying to keep from loosing it all over the rug.

Alex is there, as is Theresa, each one with a hand on his back to try and sooth him and he hears through the roaring in his ears Crumbs giving his old wand back to Jerry to give to him. Without another word, he's gone.

"Justin," Jerry asks, "you okay?"

"I feel like I'm dying."

Kelbo chuckles. The sound is more grating than nails on a chalkboard. "That's to be expected. Your body's been without magic for 6 years. You're not used to it anymore, and you've got your own powers, Max's, and Alex's all at once. It's a lot to take."

He takes a deep in hopes of keeping his stomach on the inside as he speaks. "I'm getting that."

Kelbo assures Justin he'll be fine, he's been through this himself after all, and tells him to let him know if he needs anything before he leaves.

Once the world rights itself again and he's regained the capacity to raise his head up, Justin meets Alex's eyes where she kneels across from him, blank, expressionless, and wonders what's going through her head right now.

…0…

The day of the wedding Justin still feels as if he's nursing a raging hangover, but he tries not to let on to anyone so he won't have to face questions he can't answer to those outside the family.

Max stayed over at the loft the night before. In keeping with tradition, Annaleigh's mother and Theresa both insist that she and Max don't see each other before the wedding. And being that he was the last kid out of the house, his old bedroom is still a bedroom and he had an actual bed to sleep in the night before. His own room became a TV room for his dad, and bull riding paraphernalia and the baseball glove chair fill the space. Alex's room had been Annaleigh's room during her stay there, and then became Theresa's sewing room, still pink and furry, but full of half-finished quilts in Aztec designs and brightly patterned curtains.

Alex had ended up with the living room couch, despite Max's insistence that she take his room. But she was adamant, saying he needed his beauty sleep with a grin and Justin had slept downstairs in the lair, on the couch that had replaced the tiny bench that had been there when the three of them had magic lessons together.

He tossed and turned all night, regretting his decision to sleep down there. He couldn't help but remember the last time he was in that room; when everything blew up, when his family fell apart, and before all that, being with Alex and that look on his face he didn't understand and has never forgotten.

Needless to say, coupled with his physical condition du jour, he's not exactly in the mood for a celebration.

"We're going to be late," Theresa mutters, pacing back and forth at the foot of the stairs. She leans on the railing and yells up, "Max, Alex, hurry up."

"Mom," he says, because he just can't help himself, "you guys go on ahead, I'll stay and make sure Max and Alex get there on time."

"You sure?" she asks and he can see his dad gathering up her purse and wrap as he comes to stand behind her, trying to usher her out the door. He nods.

Max is the first one of them to come down the stairs, naturally. "Justin, does this look right?" He tugs at his tie, hands shaking visibly.

Justin straightens out the leftward slant of his brother's silver tie so it lays perfectly flat down the center of his chest the way it's supposed to. He smoothes it down and then the lapels of Max's tux and steps back. His brother looks pale, nervous, and happier than Justin can ever remember seeing him. "You doing okay, Max?"

He bobs his head. "I'm great." He stops, pondering for a moment. "Is the urge to throw up a good sign?"

Laughing, Justin pats him on the back. They hear the padding of feet coming down the stairs and look up to see Alex coming down in her pale green bridesmaid dress, shoes in her hand.

For a second, Justin has to force himself to breathe and it has nothing to do with magic induced nausea.

She stops and leans a hand on Max's arm to keep herself upright while she fastens the straps of her shoes around her ankles. When she straightens up, she does a small twirl and holds her arms out slightly. "Well?"

Max grins. "You look great, Alex."

"You too," she tells him and re-straightens his tie for him. "You clean up nice." Looking over at Justin she lets her eyes flick up and back down his frame quickly. "Both of you." Then she turns to the mirror by the door and fluffs out her hair, which she's cut since Justin saw her last and is wearing straight. "I think we make a pretty spiffy looking bunch. It must be in the genes."

Justin laughs, because he can't handle the alternative; his desire to punch something, and he isn't sure if he can manage speech around the scream that's clotted in the back of his throat. There's a sob hung there too, and it tastes like shame, regret, and sorrow. But he forces the laugh out, because it's his best option.

Because as he watches Alex hug their brother, laughter and light in her eyes, he wishes he could go back to that night in DC and do everything differently.

…0…

"Hey."

He doesn't turn around when Alex speaks, just returns her greeting and keeps packing.

"You're leaving already?" Alex's voice reaches his ears, small, uncertain.

He does turn around now, gathering up the book and shaving kit he's left lying on the table. "Yeah. I'm doing a lecture series all next week for prospective students and it starts Monday so…"

"Oh." She shifts her weight, fiddling with her bracelet. "When are you-"

"First thing in the morning." He doesn't mean to sound harsh but he just wants this whole weekend to be over. He wants…something.

He's just not sure what that something is.

There's an odd look on Alex's face, sort of a cross between nervous, anticipation, a hint of fear, and maybe even a little bit of worry.

And the fact that she's displaying them here, when its late and just the two of them, makes him want to run as fast as he can back to North Carolina before something happens that throws them back into a tailspin.

Justin recognizes that look. And he knows where it leads.

It's been a rough day. The cab ride on the way to St. Ignatius was tense and just plain weird. Max sat in the middle, sweating a little, while Alex held his hand and Justin reassured him with lame jokes and pointless anecdotes. Then he watched Ben walk with Alex up the aisle, her spine stiff and ramrod straight with tension, before he, as Max's best man, walked with Annaleigh's best friend Catey in her place as Maid of Honor.

The reception wasn't much better; he'd had to smile and be polite to Annaleigh's relatives, make small talk with people he hadn't seen in years. And then Annaleigh had insisted on pictures of the whole family together, including one of him and Alex dancing to some cheesy 70's power ballad he doesn't know the name of but is pretty positive he'll never get out of his head.

He tries to concentrate on packing and not the way it felt to be that close to her again-especially after they had agreed to just let all of that go.

Easier said than done.

"Are you leaving because-" she begins, but he cuts her off.

"I have an 8 am lecture on Monday. I have to go."

"Justin, its summer. Did you volunteer for this or something?" She thinks about that for a second and then she lets out a small puff of laughter. "You volunteered."

"I like to keep busy," he says, brushing past her to grab his sneakers off the chair by the door.

"Why?"

God. He knows where this is leading and he feels bile rise up in his throat at the thought of doing this again. He can't, he just…can't.

"Alex…"

She rushes to place her hands on his arms, to silence him. He clamps his mouth shut. "Justin, what you said today in your toast (he remembers all too well), did you mean that?"

What he'd said…

"_To my brother, and to Annaleigh, who were brave enough to go after what they wanted. Not many of us have the guts to do that, and we spend our lives in regret…"_

"Well, a lot of times, people do regret the things they don't do, or the things they do," he said, shrugging her hands off so he could put his shoes in his duffel bag. Hopefully, those last few words would do the trick.

But as usual, Alex feels the need to take his plan and tear it to shreds.

She comes up behind him and drops her voice down so low he could barely hear it. He's so attuned to her though; from the sound of her voice to the way she walks, that there's no possible way he wouldn't have heard her.

"Why didn't you ever call me after you left New York?"

That was one question he was not expecting.

"Justin?" she prods. Looking back, maybe that's how all of this began. A statement, a smirk, a poking, a prodding. Him and Alex, what they've always done. "Please."

Justin doesn't think he's ever heard his sister say please in his life. He can't not answer her.

"I was hoping…" he screws his eyes shut and takes a deep breath. "I hoped that if we just left it alone and forgot about it…it would go away."

After a few beats of silence, he looks at her. "How'd that work out for you?" she asks, voice dry, humorless.

"Not well."

He feels her eyes on his back, feels the heat of her emotions burning through him like hot lead. He wants to fidget under her scrutiny, wants to shrink away and hide back in his house in North Carolina, where its safe, where he can bury himself in his work and his research and keep the thoughts at bay.

And then the quiet gets to be too much for him and he turns, angry and annoyed, and rakes a hand through his hair in irritation. "Damn it, Alex…" he exhales heavily. "Why did you come down here? I thought we settled all this in Washington."

"I did too," she says. "And then I saw you again and it just didn't feel over anymore."

Why…why does she do this to him? Why can't she just leave him be?

Because Alex has, her entire life, lived to torment her older brother and she's not going to stop now just because there are actual feelings at stake.

"Tell me you didn't feel it."

She stands in front of him now, big eyes searching his, open want evident in her face. Her small hands twine themselves through his and she steps closer, her skin brushing his. At once his entire body clenches with conflicting emotions. "Justin…I have to know, do you still feel this?"

There's a war brewing inside Justin, battle lines drawn between the need to do what's right and his desire to just give in.

But what would it accomplish? They could give in now, and tomorrow they would be exactly where they started; confused, conflicted, and completely guilt-ridden.

He's been there. And its not a great place to be.

"Alex…" He moves back and extracts his palms from hers. "I'm not going to do this again. I'm not going to put you through this again."

Her eyes change, going hard, and her jaw clenches in defiance. (He should not find it sexy.) "Its not just up to you, Justin. This involves me too and I want-"

"I don't care!" he shouts.

Alex takes a step back, shocked.

Funny, how the few times Justin has ever yelled at anyone in his life, it has always been Alex.

It's always been Alex.

"Alex," he licks his lips and speaks slowly, deliberately, "I mean it this time. We're not doing this."

He goes back to his packing, throwing things in and tugging the zipper closed, movements jerky and breathing erratic. In the back of his mind, Justin clings to the naïve hope that Alex will, for once in her life, take a hint and not press the matter further.

After all, she was the one who had come to him and told him that they had to stop what they were doing in the church. She was the one who had asked him point blank if being her brother was enough for him.

She was the one who kissed him first.

No, Justin doesn't blame her for this mess they've tumbled into. He did, once. Because it was easy and made the guilt a little more bearable, but he's past that now and he knows full well his part in all this.

That doesn't stop him from thinking that if she hadn't kissed him all those years ago right where they're standing now, none of this would have happened.

It all goes back to Alex. For Justin, this has always been the case.

"Fine," Alex finally mutters and its too easy, too convenient for her to pick now of all times to give in to his request.

"On one condition."

He knew it was too good to be true.

With a deep sigh that aches like it comes from his very bones, Justin faces Alex and her determined expression. "What?"

She invades his personal space again; face tipped up to his and so close he can feel the threading of her heartbeat against his chest. Or is that his own? At this point its hard to tell really, where he ends and she begins.

"Tell me you don't love me."

He's sure he has misunderstood. There's no way she just asked him if…

"Tell me," she repeats, "that you don't love me, and I'll leave right now and for the rest of our lives I'll just be your little sister."

Justin laughs; at the absurdity of the situation, at the inclination to slam his head into the wall, at the universe's tendency to torment him with the one girl in the world he can't have.

"Come on, Alex." He tries to brush it off. "You know I love you. I mean, you're my sister."

"No. I want you to look me in the eye," she takes hold of his face and forces him to look directly into her big dark eyes, "because you can't lie when you do and you know it, that you're not still in love with me. You don't act on impulse, Justin. Ever. You always think of the consequences. You had to have felt something…something real."

As far back as Justin can remember, his mother has been a fan of soap operas and he remembers, distantly, an interview she watched once of some actress saying that unrequited loved was the loneliest, saddest feeling in the world and he hoped that he'd never have to go through that.

Now, Justin wishes he could feel it. Now he knows what it feels like to love someone so desperately, and to know, even without the words, that he's loved in return by the only person he can never truly be with. He knows it, how it has made him ache in places he never even knew he had inside him. And he knows that it is, without a doubt, the absolute worst feeling in the entire universe.

He would welcome unrequited love right about now.

"I know you, Justin, and none of this could ever have happened if it wasn't serious for you. You couldn't do something like this otherwise."

Owning up to it would do more harm than good. To both of them.

So Justin does the hardest thing he has ever done in his entire life and he may regret it later. Not because its wrong, or even because it hurts him, but for the pain he sees in Alex's eyes when her hands drop from his face and she stumbles back into the chair in front of the bookcase.

He looks her straight in the eye and tells the biggest lie he's ever told anyone in all his 27 years.

"I've never said I was in love with you, Alex."

That's not exactly what she asked of him, but its close enough to get the job done.

Justin watches Alex walk out the door, and out of his life, and he knows that the next time they see one another, if there is a next time, nothing will be the same. What they have between them is not enough to sustain anything real, and so it will only hurt more in the end. He can feel the agony burning in to his heart with the slam of the door and he embraces it, accepts it. He will mourn, he will grieve. He will yearn for the possibilities he's just turned his back on.

And one day, when he hears the news that Alex has found someone who makes her happy, when she's in love with someone that can hold her hand in public and shout his feelings to the world, he'll rest easier with the knowledge that everything he's done has been for her.

He only hopes that someday, she sees it too.

…0…

A/N: Blech, this chapter sucks, I'm sorry, I've been battling the stomach flu. Next one will hopefully be better.

The interview referenced is one I watched forever ago of Fiona Hutchinson who played Gabriel Medina on One Life to Live.


	11. Chapter 11

_Chapel Hill; 2018_

It's easy to fall back into the same old pattern once he gets home. Work, home, work, home. This is what he has done for the last 6 years and he welcomes the numbing monotony like ice to a burn.

By Wednesday, it starts to feel as if he's never left.

Max calls him Tuesday night after he and Annaleigh got back from dinner, tells him that she's running him ragged doing all the touristy stuff around old San Juan, complains good naturedly that he thought his honeymoon was supposed to be a little more leisurely.

Halfway into the conversation he asks Justin if their parents were weird with him and Alex after he left the reception.

"Not really," he says, a squirmy feeling in his stomach. "They went straight to bed when we got back to the loft and Alex was still asleep when I left so…"

He has an inkling she wasn't though. He hadn't been able to sleep the night before he left and if he knows his sister (which he does) he wouldn't have been surprised if it'd been the same for her.

Not to mention that, when he left, he could have sworn he saw a face at her window, for just a second, before it retreated back into the early morning shadows.

He still hasn't really slept since he's been back. The thrum of magic running underneath his skin itches at him all the hours of the day and night, familiar and yet not at the same time, and he scratches absently to no relief, like trying to rub away ghosts of a dream.

In total, he's gotten about 3 hours of sleep a night since he came home. Add in his research, his lectures, the daily workouts-not to mention the emotional drama-and Justin is exhausted.

He comes home from his jog later than usual, his body racked with fatigue. All he wants is a hot shower and bed.

Justin steps under the water and hears the distant roll of thunder that's been booming on and off all day coming closer. By the time he steps out of the shower rain is pounding against the windows and he wraps a towel around his waist, moving out of the bathroom, seeing a distant crack of lightning out of the corner of his eye.

And that's not all.

A quick moving shadow flits into his peripheral vision and he grabs a baseball bat leaning against the wall outside his bedroom door. His wand is on his bedside table so this is his best, and quickest, option.

Soft shifting and scuffling noises reach his ears from around the corner and he holds the bat up, gripping the handle the way his dad taught him, and he brings it up over his head as he steps around the corner, ready to strike.

The person on the other side, making all the noises, screams and then he screams-because the other yelp is one he recognizes.

"Alex…" He drops the bat to the floor with a dull thud.

"Geez, Justin." She presses a hand to her chest, eyes narrowed. "You scared the daylights out of me."

"I scared you?" he demands. "You're the one who broke into my house in the middle of a thunderstorm."

She snorts. "Its not breaking in if you don't lock the door genius." Alex shakes her head, a few droplets of water falling from the dark strands.

He looks beyond her, and sees her car parked beside his in the driveway through the kitchen window. "Did you drive all the way down here?"

With a shrug, she kicks her flip flops off and sets the large bag on her shoulder down beside her feet. "I was on my way home this morning and I got to that exit on turnpike to go south and I started crying."

Alex colors a little. No surprise. She's never been fond of talking about the emotional stuff and that's something that's unlikely to change. Under any other circumstance, this might be a touch amusing for him. But he remembers her stricken face before she walked away from him in the lair and all he feels is guilt.

"So I pulled over," she said. Wrapping her arms around herself, Alex steps closer to him and the warmth coming off her hits the bare skin of his chest and he really, really wishes he had some clothes on right now. "And I thought about it for a long time. And I realized," she stares up at him, earnest and hopeful and she looks 19 again in that moment, "that what I did to you in New York, well, it wasn't exactly fair, was it?"

Justin shakes his head. Is she…apologizing to him?

Who is this girl and what has she done with his sister?

"What do you mean?"

She inches closer, and her palm comes to rest in the bend of his elbow, thumb brushing the pulse point there. He knows his heart is pounding, erratic, uneven, and she must feel it too.

"When I asked you if you loved me," they both swallow, hard, "I put you on the spot and I'm sorry. I had no right to do that."

Furrowing his brow, he studies her closely. "You are Alex, aren't you? Not a clone or a hologram." He waves a hand in front of her face, pokes her in the shoulder just to be certain.

She smacks him on the arm, not enough to hurt, but enough to sting, and frowns. Justin grins in response. This is an Alex he knows how to deal with.

"You could have said all this over the phone," he tells her simply.

"I could have." Taking her bottom lip between her teeth and works it back and forth slowly. "But that's not all I need to tell you."

Dread seeps through Justin's body, a sense of foreboding settling heavy in the air around them.

"I wanted you to tell me how you felt, but I've never actually come out and told you how I feel and that's what wasn't fair," Alex tells him. "So when I got back on the road, and I got to the exit for DC, I kept going because if this," she gestures between their bodies, "is ever going to be resolved, I have to tell you-"

"Alex, stop." Justin takes hold of her arms and he knows the panic rumbling through his body is evident in his eyes. "Please."

She jerks free, presses her hands against his neck. "I can't."

Her finger curls along his ear, thumb dipping into his parted mouth, and God, there's no going back from here. Alex kisses him like she's pouring everything she has into him, arms skimming down his neck and around his shoulders. He's caught off guard, and his first instinct is to respond so he does, working his lips over hers until Alex makes a small noise in the back of her throat and he jolts back to reality and jerks away, hands on her shoulders to maintain some distance. When his eyes open Alex is panting, face flushed, and he has to suck in a deep breath because that felt a little like drowning.

"Do you remember that day, when we were supposed to have the competition?" Her words fall out in a rush, emotions plain as day on her pretty face. "I remember that you looked at me and you were confused, and I think I know why."

He remembers that day well, and the expression twisting her features into something he didn't recognize, something that touched his heart none the less. "You'd never looked at me that way before," he breathes. How he wishes he had the courage to pull all the way back away from her but he's just not that strong.

Alex smiles and gently pries herself loose from his hold. He watches, dumbstruck as she pulls off the slouchy cardigan sweater she's wearing and lets it fall to the floor. "That was when it really hit me."

"What?" he asks, almost afraid to know the answer.

"You're always so focused, and I watched you and for the first time it wasn't something I wanted to make fun of you for," she says, pink cheeked and he fights the urge to smile. "And I just knew."

He waits, chest tight, blood rushing in his head.

"I knew that I…" She sucks in a quick breath. "I knew that I loved you."

All the breath in Justin's body leaves in a long exhale that physically hurts and he can't decide whether this is a good thing or not, to finally _know_.

"And I know you loved me, Justin, I could feel it." This time her hands go to the hem of her tank top and she starts to tug it up.

Stopping her is instinctual. Taking hold of her wrists, pining them in the circle of his hands, its all second nature to try and stop her from doing something he worries she'll regret.

"Justin…" Her whining is something he's heard many, many times before, and it leaves them both exasperated. "I'm an adult and I know what I'm doing. You don't have to protect me anymore. I want this." She presses her frame back against his body. "And I know you do, too."

"How can you be so sure of that?" Justin demands. He knows it's a dirty trick, to try and make her doubt herself like this, but he's desperate. "You don't know how I feel-then, or now."

"Then tell me," she seethes defiantly, piercing into his eyes and then dropping them to his lips. He leans in, and their lips lightly touch. She wets hers quickly, only to scare him away with how much it affects him. Justin drops his arms and releases the cage around her. This is a bad, _bad_ idea.

He starts to walk away, cause this is a conversation he'd rather have clothed and he'd prefer a little distance between him and his sister, some distance and some time to think, to breathe, to cool down.

But of course she follows him. "Justin…would you stop walking away from me." He can hear her stamp her foot, like so many times before. Quite a fete given that she's barefoot.

"I'd like to get dressed."

"And I'd like a million dollars and a pony," Alex retorts dryly. "Get over it."

He mutters under his breath, "Easy for you to say, you're wearing clothes."

"Look, Justin," she takes hold of his arm so he'll turn around. "I know this isn't easy for you. You never break the rules and the one time you did it blew up in your face. But its hard for me, too." Justin looks at the sparkle of tears in her eyes and just like that, his resolve crumbles. "Can't we just…can we at least try?"

She looks at him and he can see clearly now, like a veil has been lifted. Alex is just as scared as he is, and maybe she always was, masking it with her bravado, acting like she was so sure.

Justin wants to say yes, so badly, but the words just won't come and with the minutes slipping away in silence like sand draining from an hourglass, he clenches his teeth together, tension straining the edges that define the moment in a gesture of defiance that may prove fruitless, but he can't bring himself to give up this last shred of his dignity.

"_Here's some advice; stop listening to your sister."_

His father could just as easily be speaking right at Justin's ear. He hears the words so clearly and knows he should listen just like he knew it then, and there's so much more at stake now.

Then he looks at Alex, really looks at her, and sees the girl who upturned his life from the moment she was born only to do it again when she was 19. And everything changed.

Really, who listens to voices in their own head?

Dignity be damned.

Justin moves into her, tilting her face up to his with his hand, fingers stroking the soft skin of her cheek. "You loved me?"

He thinks of the pink in her cheeks then; when she says she first knew it, sees her flushing now, feels the warm tingling of chance pulsating in his veins. Alex nods, blinking rapidly like she wants to look away but she doesn't. There's an expectation in the air. The need to ask; about now, how she feels, if it's the same, is there but he can't quite bring himself to voice the question.

Before he really knows what's happening, Justin closes the space between them and kisses her, fists his hand in her hair, and they hit the wall outside his room with a thud. He feels her return his kiss, and then his mind shuts down completely, giving in, pure and simple. He pulls her tight against his body, his hands searching out the slope of her curves, a thrumming sense of joy rising within him as she continues to kiss him like she's trying to climb underneath his skin.

His hands slip underneath the thin cotton of her shirt and pushes it up, her hands leaving their place in his hair to let him jerk it off over her head and then they're back, tangling in the thick strands, skimming his shoulders, while he unbuttons her jeans and shoves at them. Alex kicks her legs free and Justin feels the wall against his back again, harder this time, his towel coming loose and falling away. He begins walking her backwards, easier when her lips move down his neck and he can see over her shoulder. As one they tumble onto the bed, hands roving everywhere within reach, building up a slow burning heat between them, and for the first time, none of it feels wrong, not at all.

…0…

The fist thing Justin is aware of when he wakes up is that its stopped raining, the gentle pattering of a muted _thumpthumpthump_ like a heartbeat that had lulled him off to sleep is gone, allowing for the birds to chirp in the bushes outside.

The second is that he smells Alex all around him. No surprise, given that she's draped over him, cheek against his neck, legs on either side of his. He breathes it in deep and exhales with the bone deep contentment of release, of relief, of an absence of worry. Justin smiles and tries not to move so he won't wake Alex. He feels pretty good, and not just because this is the first night he's slept more than 3 hours since the week before.

In all honesty, Justin believed that there would be untold amounts of guilt if he and Alex were ever to end up crossing that final boundary. But here they are, and oddly enough there is no guilt. His world has spun itself of the axis, nothing the way it had been when he woke up the day before, yet all the bleakness he had been carrying around with him has melted away.

He can't remember the last time he woke up with a smile on his face.

Noise draws his eyes down and he realizes that Alex is talking in her sleep. Raising his head up so as better to see her mouth, the corners of his mouth twitch up as he tries to figure out what she's saying. He has no luck; it's all gibberish, but its cute, so cute that when his alarm clock begins to blare he has to force himself to get out of the bed.

Alex whines when he rolls her over to the other side of the bed so he can get up. "Ugh, its too early to be awake. Normal people sleep in after sex."

Blushing like a schoolboy, Justin starts to gather his clothes for the day. He knows she's not trying to embarrass him (he doesn't think), but it does for the simple reason that she's so cut and dry about it.

"Normal people have jobs they have to be on time for, too," he tells her.

That seems to rouse her a little bit more and she finally takes her head out of the pillow to shoot that devilish little Alex smirk she does so well at him. "I didn't hear any complaints last night."

He'd fidget if he were dressed, but being naked makes him want to at least appear a little more nonchalant-its not as comical to blush fully dressed as it is in the nude. Instead he leans down and kisses her long and slow and languid, making Alex lift her head in search of more when he pulls back. That indistinct, Alpha Male-esque pride thing that he pretends to abhor kicks in full tilt at the little pout on her face. "You really have to go?"

"I'll be back by noon at the very latest," he assures her. She starts to get out of bed too, but he tells to go back to sleep and that he'll bring lunch home with him.

…0…

Justin hasn't been so thankful for a Friday since he was in high school. He races through his lecture, cuts the question portion by at least half, and by then it's already after 10.

The parents and students in the audience, there for orientation or just merely shopping around, seem a bit bewildered by his obvious rush. They'd been told he was thorough, meticulous, detailed, there's no doubt in his mind and he can't help but feel they're being shortchanged compared to the other 4 days this week, but today he's not trying to avoid going home to an empty house. Today he is more than ready to get back home, a home where Alex is waiting for him.

Being that he's been so adamant about staying busy, Justin's been doing office hours after the lectures, and spending the rest of the day poring over research articles in the library, or in the lab, trying to ignore the inane chatter of grad students hoping to impress a professor, even one as young and green as Justin.

But he's not doing that today, and if it weren't for the faculty meeting that he learned about the day before, he'd already be on his way home.

He knows he's distracted, knows his colleagues can see it, but he just doesn't have it in him to care. He shrugs off the offers of lunch on his way out, begging off with excuses of having somebody waiting for him which, given his track record, probably sounds like a lie and is calling in an order for burgers at the same diner he took Max and Annaleigh to before he's even out of the building.

The only neighbors he has within walking distance are a married couple in their early 30's, Kyle and Rachel, who live about a quarter mile from him. They're on pretty good terms Justin supposes; friendly enough to chat when they run into each other at the mail box or out at the supermarket, but not enough so that he actually knows anything about them other than the fact that they're both from in state, met at the college, and want kids 'someday, maybe' and he likes it that way.

So when he sees Kyle walking down his front steps as he pulls in beside Alex's convertible he's more than surprised. He can't remember Kyle ever being in Justin's house, nor he in his beyond the odd holiday celebration he's been invited to on necessity of being within hearing distance.

"Hey," she says, balancing the food and his briefcase while trying to lock his car door. "What's going on?"

Kyle grins, a knowing grin that give Justin the vague notion to slug him, and he tilts his head toward Justin's house. "Some house guest you got there, man."

Justin fights a groan. Who knows what Alex has said or done.

"Yeaaaah," he says slowly.

"Anyway," Kyle goes on, "Rachel and I are heading out for a few days and I wanted see if you could get the mail, maybe water the plants. We're boarding the dogs, so that's not an issue. I saw the car and figured you'd traded or something."

"Uh, sure. No problem." Justin is ready for him to leave now.

Kyle thanks him and walks away, turning to give him two thumbs up and another of those looks before disappearing down the path cutting back to his own property.

He walks in to the blasting of melodic blues and finds Alex leafing through the textbook for his freshman level class in a pair of cutoff jeans and a black bikini top, hair secured on top of her head with pens from Justin's desk. Pausing, Justin takes a moment to just take in the picture she makes. He feels like he's had this dream before.

Alex turns the page, doesn't look up. "You gonna keep staring at me, or do I get my food now?"

Plastering a look of innocence on his face, Justin walks in and sets the takeout bags and cup holder on the coffee table. They're barely out of his hand before she snatches one and begins devouring French fries.

"I have food here you know," he quips, popping straws into their milkshakes.

Snorting, Alex tears open a ketchup packet and squirts it onto a small stack of napkins. "No, you have rabbit feed, Justin. I thought guys in their 20's lived on frozen pizza and over processed snack cakes."

"Um, that would be you," he tells her. "Call me crazy, but I'd like to live past 40."

"Excuse me, but that's not exactly a salad I see you eating there." She bumps his shoulder with hers and then works her feet across his lap as she settles back into the pillows.

She asks about his day, laughs at his admittance of his rush to get back, and tells him she spent the morning on the beach, hence her state of dress-or undress depending on how you looked at it. Sitting her empty cup and sandwich wrapper on the coffee table, she stands and stretches, tugging the pens so her hair falls loose between her shoulder blades. "And I think I brought about half the sand back with me in my hair. I'm gonna go take a shower."

Justin had had his feet propped up on the coffee table and he puts them down on the floor to let her pass by, but he changes his mind at the last second and hooks a finger through her belt loop to pull her down onto his lap.

"Justin!" Her voice is high, higher than normal, caught somewhere between indignation and humor and her eyes are very wide.

Grinning, he bends his head and presses an open kiss on her collarbone and he feels the skin of her back erupt in goosebumps underneath his palm.

Alex is quick to reciprocate and she untucks the polo shirt from his chinos and tugs it off over his head and she stands up, hand on the back of his neck to pull him along with her.

"Where are we going?" he pants out as she drags him along in her wake, lips fused to his neck.

Alex pulls away just for a second to give him that 'are you kidding?' look of hers. "Shower, duh."

Face splitting in a grin that hurts its so wide, he tugs her back against his chest and they resume their walk to the bathroom. Alex manages to get his belt buckle undone when he hears the front door opening.

"Hey, Justin, I brought you the house keys dude." Kyle pops around the corner of Justin's hallway and stops dead in tracks. He turns abruptly, clears his throat. "Sorry man, I uh…I'll knock next time."

He makes a speedy exit and Alex collapses against him in giggles. "That guy really needs to work on his timing."

When he opens his mouth to respond, the phone in his pocket begins blaring out the Jeopardy theme. Alex rolls her eyes, groaning, and she leaves him to answer it when he says that ring is for the Chair of his department.

"Ten minutes," he promises, kissing her quickly before she makes her way to the bathroom and he flips the phone open.

She finds him on the couch, staring off into space and his phone still in his hand.

"What happened to ten minutes?"

He looks up at her, takes in her damp hair flowing around her face and the way the white of his tee shirt makes her tan skin seem to glow. Alex has been stealing his clothes her whole life, and the way it drapes on her slender frame makes him ache.

"That, uh," he scrubs a hand over his face, distracted, "that was the Chair of the engineering department. I just got a job offer." She doesn't respond so he continues. "It's a good one; better pay, more lab privileges, the opportunity to work with one of the leading researchers in the field."

"Wow." She sits beside him and their knees bump. "That's amazing, Justin."

"Yeah, it is." He agrees and looks away from her, unable to see her when he finishes the sentence. "And it's in Seattle."

Several seconds pass before she speaks and when she does her voice is thick with emotion. "Seattle as in all the way across the country Seattle?"

"Yeah."

She leans her head on his shoulder and her fingers wind their way through his larger ones. Turning his head, Justin inhales the scent of her shampoo and his soap mingling together and he's hit with a deep pang in his chest that he's all too familiar with; home.

"I guess we could do long distance," he tells her. "Visits here and there, or I could just stay here."

"No." Alex's voice is firm, brooking no argument and he is taken aback. "Justin, this is a big deal. You have to take it."

He shakes his head. "But Seattle-"

"Have I told you that I've been thinking about selling my gallery?"

That throws Justin off his train of thought for a minute and then when it does seep through his endorphin and worry addled brain he's still not entirely sure of the meaning behind the words.

"I don't…what does that have to do with it?"

Chuckling and rolling her eyes at once, (quite a fete he thinks) she snuggles into him, nose brushing that spot behind his ear. "It wouldn't make much sense for me to keep it when I'm going to be moving."

"You're moving?" His brow creases.

"How are you a teacher?" she asks. She climbs into his lap, tucking her legs against his thighs and twining her arms about his neck. "If you're moving to Seattle, I'm moving to Seattle. But you better believe that you are going to be buying me a whole case of anti-frizz crème because that humidity is going to be murder."

Blood rushing, he feels the rational part of his brain going fuzzy and what his friend Marlin, the psych professor in the office next to his, calls the 'happy center' lighting up like Christmas. "You're coming?"

"What part of 'I love you' did you not get?"

She smiles and he smiles and he kisses her, chests pressed together, and Justin feels the reverb of her heart beat a hurried tattoo beneath her skin, while his pounds back in echo.

…0…

Having grown accustomed to falling asleep to the sound of waves lapping, Justin instructs the Seattle realtor that he only wants a house on the water and she emails him photos that he forwards to Alex until they find one that they both love.

He's set to leave the next day, three weeks before the fall semester starts up so he can get his bearings but at the moment the only thing on his mind is that the movers are having difficulties getting his desk out the front door without disassembling it.

Growing more frustrated by the minute, when his phone rings and he sees 'Alex' flash across the front the steps outside onto his porch, happy for the break.

"Hey."

"Justin…"

Immediately, Justin hears the tears in her voice, the dull, throaty croak. "Alex, what's wrong?"

A sob breaks free from her, and he sits on the steps that lead don to the beach, panic rising high in his body. "Alex, tell me, please."

"Mom called me last night…" She takes a deep shaky breath. "And she kept telling me how much she missed us and how she wants us to come back and visit and I just kept thinking that if…she knew what we were doing…again…"

Dread, cold like the hand of death, takes hold of him in the blistering heat of a Southern summer day. "Alex, you're scaring me here."

She's full out crying now, sniffling and hiccupping and that goes with it but instead of sympathy, he's slowly filling with something akin to rage.

"I'm so sorry, Justin. I love you and I want to…but I can't. I just-"

He cuts her off, flipping his phone shut and he stands, emotions cresting inside him to a degree he's never felt before. One of the movers comes out to talk to him, but he ignores the man and walks with purpose to the edge of shoreline, flinging his phone out into the water.

Before he can think better of it, Justin digs his hand into his pocket and pulls out the one thing that he hadn't packed, the one thing he didn't trust letting out of his sight.

The diamond sparkles in the midday sun, glimmering like a thousand tiny shards of pure light in the sun's rays. He snaps the lid on the little velvet box shut and raises his arm, letting go until there's nothing in his line of vision but a tiny black dot that sails against the blue backdrop until it drops, disappearing into the choppy waters of the Atlantic.

…0…


	12. Chapter 12

…0…

_forever, forever, is half a moment away_

_-LP, Wasted_

…0…

_Seattle, Washington; 2028_

Holidays, Justin decides, are pointless.

He trudges home in the freezing rain of a cold Seattle New Year's Eve a good hour before the year rolls over but he can't take any more pointless cheer that he doesn't feel.

His phone vibrates in the inner pocket of his parka. He pulls it out and hits the 'ignore' button, sending it straight to voicemail. Sure he feels bad, but he doesn't need to hear from any of his ex-wives tonight.

Justin never thought he'd be someone who had an ex-wife, let alone three of them.

Well, almost three. It won't be official until the end of January.

Revelers dash past him, screeching noise makers and shouting out resolutions in alcohol laced voices and he rolls his eyes.

He hears a beep and knows he has a voicemail. Of all the women that he's married, Caroline is the one he's sorry it didn't work out with. He'd thought they had the best chance. Curiosity getting the best of him, he flips his phone open and dials his voicemail.

"Hi, Justin." There's a pang of guilt at the sad, empty quality he hears in her perfectly clipped Connecticut accent. "I just wanted to call and wish you a happy New Year." So he was right. "I'm sorry I missed you. Maybe we can get together next week when I get back to town-"

That's where he cuts it off. Justin isn't really surprised by her message. The end of their marriage was a shock to them both. Him because he wasn't that unhappy with her. Her, because she'd had no idea that he was unhappy at all. It wasn't as if the situation was like his first failed attempt at marriage, with Kelsey who was tall and blonde and did his taxes the year he moved to Seattle, who he asked out because she was the antithesis of what he was striving so hard to forget. He failed, and then he met Emily, who went exclusively by Em, at a sports bar when his neighbor dragged him to a Superbowl party, who reminded him so much of Alex that his heart stopped the first time he saw her, thinking his sister was actually in Seattle. He thinks of her slender frame, her chocolate colored doe eyes, and her vicious wild streak that led to several very messy arguments and broken knick-knacks. Caroline was different though, she was like the perfect girl he dreamed up in high school; well bred and well spoken, from an old New England family, and after the first time he met her at the campus and he found himself stopping by her poetry class simply because he wanted to see her again.

She had the same interests and similar tastes, she wanted kids, she was an amazing cook.

Basically, she was perfect.

The only flaw in the plan was that she just wasn't perfect for Justin.

He sat in the front row of her monthly poetry night that she hosted for her graduate students one night in October, listening to her talk about Emerson and Whitman, taking in the passion in her words and how much she loved her subject, and it finally hit him.

He wasn't in love with her.

And he'll never live down the fact that he got up and walked out of the room when the realization hit him.

Just like he'll never get over how low he felt when she came home and he'd had to tell her that it took 2 years for him to realize that he never really loved her.

Which brings him to yet another New Years Eve that he's celebrating by choosing to not celebrate and turning in before the clock strikes midnight.

That's his plan, and it's a good plan. It's never let him down.

Until tonight.

The quiet street his small house is on is even more silent than usual. It's a family neighborhood and almost everyone there has kids or grandkids. Not a lot of parties going on. About half the windows he passes are already out.

He shivers, cursing his car and its transmission problems, and they city for putting the bus stop so far away.

Justin hadn't thought his night could get any worse until he opens the gate on his actual white picket fence and stops dead at the sight of Alex sitting on the porch steps.

She's on the top step, just out of the way of the rain, sitting with her arms wrapped around her stomach. She must have been waiting for him, her eyes lock onto his as soon as he sees her, and she takes her bottom lip between her teeth, uncertainty all over her face. When he closes the gate behind and walks further, slowly, up the walkway, she stands, rubbing her palms against her jeans. "Hey."

"What are you doing here, Alex?"

Watching Alex flinch, Justin registers the rain stop over his head, but the chill is still in his bones and it has nothing to do with the temperature.

"I, uh…" she stammers and he feels oddly vindicated, "Mom told me about you and Kelsey. I'm sorry."

"Caroline."

Her sympathetic expression falters. "What?"

"Caroline," he says. "I just broke up with Caroline. Kelsey was my first wife."

Alex blushes under the light from his porch light. "Oh. But I thought Emily-"

"Number 2." Without elaborating, he brushes past her and unlocks the front door. Dropping his keys on the front table, he walks straight to the fridge and pulls out a beer. He's not a big fan, but Em always kept them around and he finds himself in the mood every once in a while, especially after a bad day. Turning, he offers Alex one where she stands hovering just inside his door. She shakes her head.

"Again, what are you doing here, Alex?" he demands.

She shifts her weight from foot to foot. She won't look him directly in the eye, and one thing he's learned in his life is that when Alex refuses to meet his gaze its because she's got something up her sleeve.

"I don't know," she finally whispers.

"You don't know." Justin scoffs. Typical Alex, showing up, turning his life inside out, on a whim.

Setting her purse on the floor, she takes two, three steps toward him and he notices her noticing for the first time that pretty much the entirety of his house is boxed up on the floor. "You moving in or out?"

"Does it matter?"

Alex stamps her foot. Ordinarily, seeing a 35 year old woman behaving so childish would make him laugh, but it doesn't feel funny at all since this is Alex he's dealing with. "Why do you keep slinging questions back at my questions?"

"Because I don't know how to react to you anymore, Alex. Is that what you wanna hear?" All but slamming his can down onto the tile counter, his grips the edges so tightly the blue ceramic digs into the skin of his palm. It isn't fair, the way she affects him still. "Do you want me to tell you that just thinking about you makes me want to put my fist through a wall? Cause that's how I feel, how I've been feeling for the last 10 years, Alex."

She comes up behind him, close enough for the familiar heat of her skin to hit him and his grip tightens. "I know I hurt you, Justin and I'm sorry. You'll never know how hard that was for me."

"For you?" He whirls on her, forcing down the urge to take hold of her shoulders and shake some sense into her. "Yeah, I can see that. After all, you were the one who showed up and turned my life inside out, the one who said she loved me and made me think we had a future together only to _call _me and say you just couldn't. Oh yeah, Alex," he spit's the words out, "I can see how that was really hard for you."

He should be prepared for the sting of her palm against his cheek but he's not. Eyes widening, he inhales deeply but refuses to break their eye contact first.

"Do you remember when you still believed in fairy tales?" Alex asks, and he's bewildered beyond belief. "I don't think I ever did, but I always wondered if I was going to get the happily ever after; white dress, handsome guy, all that stuff that I used to make fun of. And then one day I woke up and it all seemed so dumb cause I realized that the happily ending I really wanted was with my brother."

Something deep in the recesses of Justin's soul, something long dormant, begins to crack open and thaw.

Trained on the floor of his kitchen, Alex's eyes are hidden from him and he that old familiar wanting to see them, to know what she's thinking, rises up inside him like a tide. He settles for watching her lips move as she continues to speak.

"I was scared," she whispers. "Terrified. After you left New York…things were bad, Justin, they were really bad." Her voice breaks, and he notices her shoulders start to shake. "Mom and Dad couldn't even look at me, Max wouldn't talk to me, and I thought…I thought you hated me. So I ran."

That is something he never even imagined. "Alex, I'm angry, I'm really angry, but I've never hated you. Ever."

Whatever it was that Alex had been reigning in broke free and she covered her face with her hands, sobs tumbling out.

Hesitant, stemming from everything in his body screaming not to get any closer, Justin moves his hands to Alex's arms and pulls her against him as she cries. He rubs her back until the sobs lessen to hiccups and then disappear all together. She pulls back, unwrapping her hands from the fabric of his shirt she'd been twisting in her grip, and wipes at her face.

God, he is so tired of seeing her cry.

Taking over, Justin moves his fingers over her face, her own hands falling away and her face tipped up to his with something like wonder.

Her skin is wet, sticky, but still so incredibly soft and Justin marvels at just how beautiful she still is.

"Justin," her hands lay tenderly on his sides, "is there any way you can forgive me?"

There is no doubt what she's really asking. He gets it, and yes, he's thought about it, every day for the last 10 years he's rolled the possibilities around in his head of what life would be like if Alex had come with him, if they'd lived in their house on the beach all this time. But that didn't happen and it's hard to imagine anything like that ever coming to be after all the bitterness he's carried around for the last 10 years, maybe longer. Honestly, it's hard just because he's married other women in attempts to forget her, and all those endeavors ended before they even really began.

"Yeah," he says. "I can forgive you, Alex. But," he adds when she starts to move into him, "I don't want to go down this road again."

Her face falls. "You don't?"

"Can you stand there and tell me that surprises you?" Incredible. "Alex, we've done a lot of damage to each other, for way too long. Maybe its time we just let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak."

She nods, stepping back and turning her back to him.

"I have to admit, this was not the reaction I was expecting."

Justin smiles, despite himself. Same old Alex. "You thought you'd show up before my divorce is even final and I would leap at the chance to pick up where we left off."

Facing him, she shrugs, smirking. "Something like that."

A laugh forms inside Justin. He will never stop being flabbergasted by his sister and the way her mind works.

"So we're okay?" He steps toward her. "You're not gonna spend the rest of your life plotting revenge on me?"

Alex snorts. "I haven't plotted against you since high school, Justin."

"Good to know."

Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, Justin hits the speed dial button for his favorite Chinese restaurant and gets two more beers out of the fridge, tossing one to her. Being that there is no furniture, they sit down against the kitchen island, shoulder to shoulder.

"So why are we on the floor?"

Justin takes a long sip before answering. "Moving."

"Out?"

"Vancouver."

"Oh." Alex's voice goes small and he looks at her curiously. "You're leaving Seattle."

He nods; thankful he doesn't hit his head on the wood behind him. "Yeah. Seattle has a lot of bad memories for me. I need a fresh start and I got offered a pretty fantastic position…And it's not like there's anything keeping me here," he adds in an offhanded air.

Plus there's that whole being sick of constantly running into his angry ex-wives thing.

"What about you and…"

"Caroline," he supplies.

Sheepish, Alex nods. "Right. Caroline. What happened there?"

Can he be honest with her? He wants to, badly, but opening that can of worms is dangerous. Then he looks at Alex, looks into her eyes, and can't bring himself to lie to her, not again. "I wasn't in love with her."

Alex's eyes go wide, bottom lip falling open. "You married a woman you weren't in love with?" The fact that she found this so unbelievable, that she still had that opinion of him, touches Justin more than he can say. "Why would you do that?"

"Why does anyone get married? I want to be happy."

"The other two?" she asks.

He gets a reprieve when his doorbell rings and he gets up to pay for their food. Being that it's close to midnight, Justin gives the cranky looking delivery boy a pretty big tip.

But she insists on him answering and he watches a cloud pass over her face as he confesses that he's married three women he didn't love and hurt all of them pretty badly. "Not that I got out of it unscathed," he tells her and lifts the bottom hem of his shirt up, "Em got me pretty good with a crystal vase. Twelve stitches."

"I think I'd like her," Alex muses.

"Me too. She's a lot like you."

Her head shoots up, surprise marring her features. "She is?" He nods. "What about the others?"

"Kelsey…not at all. Caroline's a lot like me."

Alex puts her chopsticks in the container of sesame noodles she'd been picking at and moves until she's sitting directly in front of him, knees brushing his. Face hopeful; eyes wide, earnest, licking her lips. "Justin," she pushes her hair behind her ears, "you've married three totally different women and couldn't make it work with any of them…what does that say to you?"

Oh, Justin knows exactly what it says. He knows exactly what it means.

It's never worked with anyone else because there's only one person he wants to be with for more than a few months.

He wants Alex.

"It says that I have a serious problem," he tells her. "And a flight that leaves in seventeen hours so I don't think now is the best time to talk about it."

"I almost got married," Alex blurts out, taking no pause to acknowledge his shocked expression. "Last summer. I'd been dating this guy on and off for a while and he kept pushing me to finally choose one way or another if I was serious, so I said yes when he asked."

She looks at Justin with absolute certainty on her face, speaks with no doubt in her voice. "I got off the plane in Vegas and I could have sworn I saw you there...just standing there, looking at me, in the middle of baggage claim. So I told him I couldn't go through with it and got straight back on another plane home."

(He has to force himself not to make a jab at her pattern of changing her mind at the last minute.)

"So when you heard I was getting divorced again…"

Laughing, Alex blushes and nods. "Yeah. I'm a 35 year old woman in love with my brother who still writes notes on his hand and collects dolls."

"Action figures." That was habit.

With a groan, Justin's head drops forward until his chin hits his chest. He'd be lying if he denied the joy bubbling in his stomach. Its there, and it's powerful, and he feels that same almost magnetic pull.

"Justin, they're made of plastic and wear caped costumes-they're dolls."

He'll never back down on this though. He knows he's right.

By now he's put his own food aside and he's leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Alex's face, the face that has changed surprisingly little in the decade since he's seen it last, the face that haunts his dreams, looms closer to his.

"Alex…we can't."

"I know," she whispers, eyes falling to his lips.

"We'd kill each other in a week," he says.

"I know."

"I'm uptight and you're flakey."

"I'm not flakey, I'm spontaneous."

"You have a business to run." Maybe that'll help. Her, not him. His fingers slide over hers when it creeps over her leg onto his.

Nose brushing his, she smiles. "Callie bought me out last week."

Justin tries one last, desperate measure. "We'd have to lie to everyone."

She nods, face sobering. "And Mom and Dad may never forgive us."

It's clear that he's never going to win this argument. Submission takes hold of him and he lets his head drop into the crook of her shoulder. She's agreeing with him and his world goes off kilter. Breathing her in, Justin allows the momentary delusion that this can work to play out in his head. He wants this, wants it so bad he can taste it. The few days Alex spent with him in North Carolina were the happiest of his life and nothing else since then has even come close. Everything; his awards, accomplishments, his friends, his wives, have paled in comparison to the stolen moments they shared on the beach.

Justin hasn't been to the beach since. And he lives on the Pacific coast.

Finally, from somewhere deep inside, Justin finds the strength to look up and lay all the cards on the table. "I can't do this only to have it fall apart again, Alex. You have to mean it."

Her smacking his arm takes him off guard. "I've been the one instigating most of this for over 15 years and you want me to mean it?"

She has a point.

"We can't get married, we can't have kids. This is illegal you know."

"No one knows us in Vancouver," she counters.

And that's when she braces her weight on his thighs and presses her lips to his.

Greed, relief, desire streaks through Justin like a hot blade through butter, searing through the logic and the self preservation he calls on when things get to be too much.

They're beaten down, ignored; the only word echoing in his mind as he pulls her into his lap is _finally_. Justin draws her in and draws her close, heat imploding in his stomach and setting his entire being on fire.

It should scare him, the strength of the emotions flooding his body that make his hands sweep the familiar bends and angles of her frame and his lips scrape savagely down her neck, his heart frantic, skin pricking with _need_.

Alex catches his mouth again, pulling him closer with hands on the back of his neck before she mimics his actions, blazing a devastating path down his neck that sends his hormones into overdrive and he shudders. Her thighs clamp restlessly on his hips. He feels the heat of her skin through the still slightly damp material of her jeans, rough under his hands. His palms move up, splaying on the small of her back underneath her T shirt and she arches into him. He swears he can feel the imprint of fingerprints on his skin as she grasps at him.

Body thrumming like a tuning fork, Justin wills his mind to clear. Hard to do when the simple press of her hands on her skin make him want to scream.

He tears his lips away from hers, a curse falling from him that make her look at him in surprise and then smile a slow, knowing smile, nuzzling her nose into _that spot_.

"Alex…" Fighting for oxygen to fill his deprived lungs, Justin's head falls back against the kitchen island with a hard thud that stings and reverberates in his head. "We've got to be rational here."

"Rational is overrated."

He has to be strong here. "This part has never been our problem." He takes her face in his hands and forces her to look at him. "We get within five feet of each other and we regress into hormone crazed teenagers."

Alex cocks her head to the side. "Great sex is great sex."

How embarrassing is it that he wants to blush?

"If we do this," he says, voice overly calm and too controlled, "we have to be smart about it."

She fiddles with the top button of his shirt. "God, Justin, you make it sound like we're planning a bank robbery or something." Winding her arms around his neck, she slides her fingers up into his hair, scratching at his scalp and he feels his resolve crumble. "Tell you what," she offers, "you cook us up a cover story and I'll stick to it."

Justin scoffs. "Right."

"Promise," she mumbles, mouth skimming down his throat. "I just don't want to miss you anymore."

The whole proposition is wrong, it's dangerous and it's reckless. But Justin has felt the longing in his bones for one woman since he was 21 years old and he fell in love with the one person he was never supposed to want, and now he has a chance to silence that craving once and for all.

It's wrong. Over and over and over again he reminds himself of that but then he walks into the kitchen and he sees Alex wearing his clothes while she cooks, or sketching in front of the big window in the living room of their house in Vancouver, he has to wonder how love can ever be wrong.

The law would tell him how. As would the church, his parents, any person on the street, but then she smiles at him and he finds it hard to care about anything other than the sheer amazement that washes over him when he realizes he makes her happy.

And it's enough.

...0...

_i said baby you're not lost_

...0...

end.

'Lost' by Michael Bublé. Gorgeous song and it inspired the whole fic. Go have a listen.


End file.
